Developing core dental public health competencies for predoctoral dental and dental hygiene students

Dental professionals are an underutilized workforce, when it comes to advocating for prevention and wellness in populations. The goal of this HRSA-funded project is to develop dental public health (DPH) competencies and curriculum for US predoctoral dental and dental hygiene programs. These competencies and accompanying curriculum are designed to better prepare the oral health workforce to meet the needs of the entire population, including the chronically underserved, those challenged by poor health literacy, or communities encountering barriers to accessing oral health care. By increasing the DPH competency of all graduating dental providers, in population-based approaches to preventing oral diseases rather than the existing exclusive focus on treatment, the number of providers who can respond to a population or the public's unmet needs and challenges, both in private practices and publicly supported clinics, will increase. This paper describes the competency development process and the eight competencies that were identified.