Advance Letter

American 211 East Chicago Avenue Survey Center

Dental Chicago, Illinois 60611

Association (312) 440-2568

Form Approved

OMB No Exp. Date

May 2007

Dear Doctor:

The dental community needs your help with an important matter. The American Dental Association’s (ADA) Survey Center in collaboration with RTI International, a non-profit research organization, are collecting information for the Division of Oral Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on an important area of dental practice: infection control in dental care settings. The information provided by these data is critical to ongoing efforts to protect patients, dentists, and other dental health care providers from infection and injury occurring in the dental workplace. This data collection is authorized under Section 301 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 241).

In several days you will receive a copy of the Survey on CDC’s 2003 Infection Control Guidelines. You are a part of a small sample of active private practitioners who were selected at random to receive it. Your participation is voluntary. If you are an ADA member, participation in this survey will not affect benefits or services provided by the ADA. We ask that you please take about 15 minutes to complete the survey and return it. Postage is already paid. If you are unable to respond to every question, please return the survey with as much information as you can provide. If you are not currently in private practice, please indicate this on the survey and return it to us.

Data will be treated in a secure manner and will not be disclosed, unless otherwise compelled by law. The identification number on the questionnaire will only be used for tracking purposes until your response has been received and processed by the ADA. When data collection is complete (in approximately 6 months), the list linking this number to your identifying information will be destroyed and no one will be able to link names to responses. Results from this project will be reported and published in aggregate form only, so no individual will be identifiable. No identifying information will be released to other ADA agencies or to any outside groups.

If you have any questions, please call (312) 440-2568.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in this important request.

Sincerely,

Karen Schaid Wagner

Director

Survey Center