| Home |
 |
Online Study Guide |
|
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W |
Administrative law: The delegation of legislative power to an administrative agency.
Affective domain: The learning domain that includes feelings, attitudes, and values; it is not easily measured.
Agent factors: Biological or mechanical means for causing diseases or conditions.
American Association of Public Health Dentistry (AAPHD): The organization that represents American public health dentists, dental hygienists, and the science of dental public health.
American Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors: The organization that represents state dental departments.
American Dental Association (ADA): The organization that represents American dentists and the science of dentistry.
American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA): The organization that represents American dental hygienists and the science of dental hygiene.
Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART): A dental sealant placed on a tooth surface with demineralization that has been removed by hand. This preventive/restorative dental method is utilized when a patient will have difficulty accessing restorative dental care.
Assessment: The part of the dental hygiene process of care that carefully analyzes the program’s target group and resources.
Back to topBarrier: Something that prevents an individual or a group from receiving dental care.
Benefits: The amount that the insurance entity will pay for covered dental services described in their policy.
Back to topCalibration: Ensuring consistency within and among examiner(s).
Capitation: A dental provider gets paid a specified dollar amount, for a given time period, to take care of the dental needs of a specified group of people.
Change agent: A person who lobbies to change laws, increasing access to care for the underserved populations.
Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS): Health care services for military personnel and dependents.
Civil service employee: An employee of the federal government. A hygienist may work as a civil servant at various government entities.
Claims processing: The entire process of entering the procedures rendered until payment is collected or denial is determined.
Clinical evaluation: Any clinical method utilized to evaluate a dental public health program or research.
Clinician: A person who provides dental hygiene clinical care to the population.
Cognitive domain: The learning domain that consists of intellectual skills.
Collaborative practice: The science of the prevention and treatment of oral disease through the provision of education, assessment, preventive, clinical, and other therapeutic services in a cooperative working relationship with a consulting dentist, but without general supervision as practiced in the state of New Mexico.
Commercial insurance plans: An insurance plan that operates for a profit.
Common law: A law that is created and changed only by the courts.
Community dental health: See dental public health.
Component organizations: The local components of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association.
Congressman: See representative.
Constituent organizations: The state or regional components of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association.
Constitutional law: Law that is created and changed by the people.
Consumer advocate: A person who provides dental health consultation to various target populations.
Continuous variable: A variable that can be expressed by a large and infinite number of measures along a continuum, can be expressed in fraction, and is considered quantitative.
Contract: The insurance contract between the insurance entity and the group.
Control: A group in a study that does not receive treatment or therapy.
Copayment: A portion of the costs of each service that is paid by the patient.
Correlation: The linear relationship between variables.
Cultural diversity: The integration of an individual’s or population’s socioethnocultural background into dental hygiene care.
Culture and cycle of poverty: Exploration of the culture of poverty and the cyclical change of poverty.
Back to topData: The information that is collected by a researcher.
Deductible: The amount an individual enrolled in the insurance plan must pay toward covered services before the insurance entity begins paying.
Defluoridation: The process of removing excessive natural fluorine from water supplies.
Demand: The particular frequency or desired frequency of dental care from a population.
Dental assistant: The professional who assists the dental hygienist and/or dentist.
Dental claim: A claim for payment made by the patient for a dental procedure that was rendered.
Dental claim form: The standard form utilized to file a claim or request authorization for a procedure.
Dental hygiene: The art and science of preventive oral health.
Dental hygiene diagnosis: The formal diagnosis of a population’s current dental hygiene status.
Dental hygiene process of care: The assessment, dental hygiene diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation of dental hygiene care of a target population.
Dental hygiene treatment: Periodontal debridement and oral hygiene instruction.
Dental hygienist: The professional who provides clinical and educational dental hygiene services to the public.
Dental indexes: The standardized methods used to describe the status of an individual or group with respect to an oral condition.
Dental necessity: A service provided by a dental provider that has been determined as a generally acceptable dental practice for the diagnosis and treatment of an individual.
Dental public health: The oral health care and education, with an emphasis on the utilization of the dental hygiene sciences, delivered to a target population.
Dentist: The professional who provides clinical and educational dental services to the public.
Dentistry: The art and science of restorative oral health.
Dependent variable: In a clinical study, the variable that is being tested.
Descriptive statistics: Consist of the procedures that are used to summarize, organize, and describe quantitative data.
Determinants of health: The factors that interact to create specific health conditions, including physical, biological, behavioral, social, cultural, and spiritual.
Developmental disability: A disability that occurs during uterine development.
Discrete (categorical) variable: A variable that is made up of distinct and separate units or categories, also referred to as mutually exclusive, and is counted only in whole numbers.
Disease rates: The number of disease cases or deaths among a population or target group during a given time period expressed as a ratio.
Back to topEarly and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT): Persons under 21 years of age must be covered by Medicaid for medical, dental, and vision care.
Early childhood caries: Dental caries that affects children, sometimes referred to as nursing bottle decay or baby bottle decay.
Early Head Start: The federal program that promotes the economic and social well-being of pregnant women and their children up to age three.
Educator: The person who educates and promotes dental health issues to various target populations.
Endemic: A relatively low, but constant level of occurrence of a disease or health condition in a population.
Epidemic: A disease or condition occurring among many individuals in a community or region at the same time and usually spreading rapidly.
Epidemiology: See oral epidemiology.
Ethnocentrism: The belief that one’s culture is superior.
Etiology: The theory of causation for a disease or condition.
Evaluation: The part of the dental hygiene process of care that encompasses evaluation of a dental public health program.
Exclusive Provider Arrangement (EPA): Dental care providers contracts with an employer (which eliminates the third party) and negotiates the fees for services offered to the employer’s employees.
Explanation of benefits: A form sent to the patient and provider explaining the payment for procedures or denial of payment for procedures rendered.
Back to topFederal: National; of or pertaining to the United States of America.
Federation Dentaire Internationale (FDI): The organization that represents the international community of dentists.
Fee slip: Form utilized by the dental provider that details the services rendered.
Fluoridation: The addition of fluoride to drinking water.
Fluoride: A salt of hydrofluoric acid.
Fluoride varnish: A varnish of fluoride that is applied to teeth to prevent dental caries; particularly effective in the prevention of early childhood caries.
Fluorosis: A form of enamel hypomineralization due to excessive ingestion of fluoride during the development of the teeth.
Formative evaluation: An evaluation of the program during implementation; evaluating the process.
Frontier: A geographic area that is even more sparsely populated than a rural area.
Back to topGovernment: A method or system of controlling people.
Group: See target population.
Back to topHead Start: The federal program that promotes the economic and social well-being of families and children from three to five years of age.
Health behavior: An action that helps prevent illness and promote health.
Health education: The education of health behaviors that bring an individual to a state of health awareness.
Health promotion: The promotion of healthy ideas and concepts to motivate individuals to adopt health behaviors.
Healthy People 2010: The report released from the federal government which states the goals and objectives necessary to improve the health and quality of life for individuals and communities.
Back to topImplementation: The part of the dental hygiene process of care that includes the actual operation of a program.
Incidence: The number of new cases of a disease in a population over a given period of time.
Independent contractor: A person who works for him-, or herself in a governmental or private capacity.
Independent practice: The practice of dental hygiene without the supervision of a dentist, although the dental hygienist refers all dental needs to a dentist; sometimes called unsupervised practice or collaborative practice.
Independent variable: In a clinical study, the variable that is being manipulated.
Index: See dental indexes.
Inferential statistics: Used to make inferences or generalizations about a population based on data taken from a sample of that population.
International Federation of Dental Hygienists (IFDH): The organization representing the international community of dental hygienists.
Interval scale of measurement: Has equal distance between any two adjacent units of measurement, but there is no meaningful zero point.
Back to topLearning domain: The domains of learning, a way to differentiate the individual types of learning.
Lesson plan: A written document used in planning a presentation.
Long-term care facility: A facility that provides live-in care for patients with medical complications.
Back to topManaged care: Refers to the integration of health care delivery and financing.
Manager: The developer and coordinator of dental public health programs; sometimes referred to as an administrator.
Manpower: The available personnel to do a job; referred to as labor force.
Manpower shortage: Inadequate availability of personnel to perform a job.
Mean: The average of scores.
Measurement: A particular method utilized to evaluate a dental public health program based upon the program objectives.
Median: The midpoint of scores.
Medicaid (Title XIX): Money from federal, state, and local taxes pays bills for certain groups of people, including low-income, aged, blind, disabled, and member of families with dependent children.
Medicare (Title XVIII): A federal insurance program from trust fund to pay medical bills of all people over age sixty-five.
Metropolitan: A large population nucleus, consisting of a city and surrounding suburban areas.
Modality: A clinical or educational dental hygiene treatment.
Mode: The score that occurs most often.
Morbidity: The ratio of “sick” (affected) individuals to well individuals in a community.
Mortality: The ratio of the number of deaths from a given disease or health problem to the total number of cases reported.
Motivation: The will of the individual to act.
Back to topNeed: A normative, professional judgment as to the amount and kind of health care services required to attain or maintain health.
Nonclinical evaluation: A method utilized when evaluating a dental public health program that does not measure clinical changes.
Nominal scale of measurement: Organizes data into mutually exclusive categories, but the categories have no rank order or value.
Normal bell curve: A normal distribution of the mean, median, and mode.
Nursing home: See long-term care facility.
Back to topOral epidemiology: The study of the amount, distribution, determinant, and control of disease and health conditions among given populations.
Ordinal scale of measurement: Organizes data into mutually exclusive categories which are rank ordered based on some criterion but the difference between ranks is not necessarily equal.
Back to topP.A.N.D.A.: An acronym for Prevent Abuse and Neglect through Dental Awareness. An educational program aimed at helping dental providers recognize and report child abuse.
Paradigm: A model used to explain a concept or theory.
Parameter: Numerical characteristic of the population.
Planning: The part of the dental hygiene process of care that includes the development of a program.
Poster session: A method utilized to disseminate original research findings.
Practice Act: A statute that defines the practice of dental hygiene or dentistry.
Preceptorship: The on-the-job training of dental hygienists, sometimes referred to as alternative education.
Preexisting condition: The condition of the mouth that exists prior to the patient being covered by an insurance entity.
Premium: The monthly amount due to the insurance entity by the group or the individual.
Prepaid group practice: A large group of dental providers that contract to groups of patients.
Prevalence: A numerical expression of the number of all existing cases of a disease in a population measured at a given point.
Procedure number: The number given to a specific procedure as designated in the Codes on Dental Procedures and Nomenclature published by the ADA.
Program planning: The process of developing a dental public health program.
Promulgate: To put a law into practice as done by state dental boards.
Provider: A legally licensed dental hygienist or dentist that is operating within their scope of practice.
Psychomotor domain: The learning domain that describes actions.
Public health: See dental public health.
Public health officer: See U.S. Public Health Service Officer.
p-value: The probability that the findings from study are due to chance.
Back to topQualitative evaluation: Answering the why and how of a dental public health program or research project.
Quantitative evaluation: A numerical evaluation of a dental public health program or research project.
Quasi-experimental research design: A research design that does not include a control group.
Back to topRange: The range is determined by subtracting the highest score from the lowest score.
Ratio scale of measurement: Contains all the characteristics of the preceding scales, but also has an absolute zero point determined by nature.
Regulation: The state dental boards’ procedure which further defines the law.
Reliability: The reproducibility of a research study.
Representative: An elected member of the U.S. or individual state House of Representatives.
Researcher: A person who conducts research germane to the study of health and disease.
Research types: The way of categorizing research studies.
Risk factors: The characteristics of an individual or population that may increase the likelihood of experiencing a given health problem.
Rural: A geographic area that is sparsely populated.
Rules: The state dental boards’ interpretation of a law.
Back to topSelf-regulation: The governing of dental hygiene practice by dental hygienists.
Senator: An elected member of the U.S. or individual state senate.
Single procedure: a specific procedure designated by a specific code.
Skew: The tail of a distribution formed by a few extreme scores.
Social worker: A professional who works at helping individuals or the community enhance their capacity for social functioning.
Socioeconomic status (SES): An individual’s comparative status in social and economic standing within a community.
Sound natural teeth: Teeth that are either primary or permanent that have adequate hard and soft tissue support.
Standard deviation: The measure of dispersion.
State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP): A federal program that was created by the federal government to cover individuals that have incomes too high to qualify for state medical assistance but cannot obtain private insurance. All states participate, but some do not cover dental.
Statute: A law, sometimes in the form of a practice act.
Statutory law: The law that is created and changed by the legislature.
Summative evaluation: An evaluation of all parts of an implemented program.
Supply: The quantity of dental care services available.
Surgeon general: The appointed administrator of the U.S. Public Health Service.
Surveillance: The methods or systems used to monitor disease and morbidity in a population periodically or on an ongoing basis.
Back to topTable clinic: A method utilized to disseminate past research studies and literature reviews of a specific topic.
Target population: A representation of a certain segment of the population.
Therapeutic services: The services the dental hygienist provides that benefit the patient. These may include periodontal debridement, polishing, fluoride application, local anesthesia, dental sealants, education, and behavior modification interventions.
Three-party system: The dental provider renders the service and a sponsor of the patient pays for the service; insurance company or employer pays the dental provider for the service.
Two-party system: The dental providers render the service and the patient pays the dental provider for the service.
Back to topUCR (Usual, customary, and reasonable fee): The fee that reflects the average dentist fee per service in the immediate local region.
Urban: A concentrated human settlement, usually consisting of at least 2,500 people.
U.S. Public Health Service Officer: A dental hygienist or dentist that is a commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Services.
Utilization: The number of dental care services actually consumed.
Back to topValidity: The degree to which the research study measured what it was supposed to measure.
Variance: The squared deviation of each score from the mean’s sum.
Back to topWater fluoridation: See fluoridation.
| Legal and Privacy Terms |  |