A service-learning framework to address accreditation standards: Self-Assessment, communication skills, health literacy, and cultural competence.

Objectives: Pre-doctoral dental programs must provide opportunities for students to become proficient in self-assessment, communication skills, health literacy, and cultural competence, essential for independent unsupervised practice. This study aimed to assess how student learning through a classroom education service-learning program addresses the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) standards 2-11 and 2-17; specifically through the examination of self-assessment, communication skills, health literacy, and cultural competence.

Methods: This 2022 retrospective mixed methods cohort study examined unstructured faculty comments on drafted lesson plans and structured evaluations of classroom education service-learning rehearsal sessions.

Preschool oral health-related quality of life: A practical guide to measurement tools.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to describe currently available measurement tools for assessing oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL) in preschool aged children to aid clinicians and researchers in selection of the appropriate tool for their needs.

Methods: The authors describe and compare eight OHRQoL tools that were created or adapted for use among preschoolers, including the Child Oral Health Impact Profile-Preschool, Dental Discomfort Questionnaire, Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale, Michigan-OHRQoL, Parental-Caregiver Perceptions Questionnaire and Family Impact Scale, Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory-Oral Health Scale, Pediatric Oral Health-Related Quality of Life, and Scale of Oral Health Outcomes for 5-year-old children.

Results: The tools vary by their intended target population, oral condition of interest, intended setting for use, and method of administration.

A School-Based Dental Program Evaluation: Comparison to the Massachusetts Statewide Survey.

Background: School-based dental programs target high-risk communities and reduce barriers to obtaining dental services by delivering care to students in their schools. We describe the evaluation of a school-based dental program operating in Chelsea, a city north of Boston, with a low-income and largely minority population, by comparing participants' oral health to a Massachusetts oral health assessment.

Methods: Standardized dental screenings were conducted for students in kindergarten, third, and sixth grades.

Public health, medicine, and dentistry as partners in community health: a pioneering initiative in interprofessional, practice-based education.

Context: As public health challenges grow more complex, the call for professional education to be interprofessional, collaborative, and grounded in real world practice has intensified.

Objective: In this article, we describe the development, implementation, and results of one pioneering course at Boston University that aims to prepare public health, medical, and dental students for their combined roles in community health settings.

Setting And Participants: The Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Dental Medicine jointly offered the course in partnership with 3 community organizations.

Pediatric clinicians can help reduce rates of early childhood caries: effects of a practice based intervention.

Objective: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a serious and preventable disease which pediatric clinicians can help address by counseling to reduce risk.

Research Design: We implemented a multifaceted practice-based intervention in a pediatric outpatient clinic treating children vulnerable to ECC (N = 635), comparing results to those from a similar nearby clinic providing usual care (N = 452).

Intervention: We provided communication skills training using the approach of patient centered counseling, edited the electronic medical record to prompt counseling, and provided parents/caregivers with an educational brochure.

Racial and ethnic disparities in children's oral health: the National Survey of Children's Health.

Background: The authors evaluated racial/ethnic differences and their socioeconomic determinants in the oral health status of U.S. children, as reported by parents.