Penn Dental Medicine CIGOH Faculty Share Perspectives as Part of NASEM Discussions on Global Oral Health

Philadelphia — Dr. Michael Glick, Executive Director of Penn Dental Medicine’s Center for Integrative Global Oral Health (CIGOH) and Dr. Julian Fisher, Adjust Professor of CIGOH, were among the experts who were part of workshop proceedings recently released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). The proceedings report on a fall 2022 workshop “Sharing and Exchanging Ideas and Global Experiences on Community-engaged Approaches to Oral Health,” presented by the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education, a NASEM planning committee.

The workshop presentations provided a foundation for discussing newly published World Health Organization (WHO) and FDI World Dental Foundation definitions of community-engaged oral health and its application within and across health professions. The workshop emphasized lifelong learning and the social determinants of health and community engagement, exploring the development of innovative approaches and models for oral health workforce education and training in a global context. Three thematic areas of discussions included data and evidence, policy and regulation, and interprofessional and transdisciplinary education and learning.

Dr. Glick was part of a roundtable discussion for the session titled “Operationalizing a New Model for Designing Demonstration Projects,” which was co-moderated by Dr. Fisher, who is also a committee member of the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education.

Drs. Glick and Fisher were also among the co-authors of a National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Perspectives discussion paper released in February 2023 that outlined how expanding the oral health workforce model through collaborations across the health, social service, financial, and educational sectors can help achieve oral health for all.