The O-Health-Edu team is delighted to announce that Intellectual Output 1 ‘A Scoping Review on the Reporting of Oral Health Professional Education in Europe’, has now been concluded with the publication of a peer-reviewed article in the European Journal of Dental Education. The article is available via open access.

Spanned over 500 sources, through defined criteria and application of the PRISMA and Arksey & O’Malley methodological frameworks for scoping reviews the team explored the research question “How is oral health professional education reported in Europe?” the final number of included sources was 85 and the average year of publication was 2007. 

The scoping review concluded that reporting of oral health professional education in Europe is limited, particularly with regards to knowledge on how education is implemented and delivered and calls for a greater need for educationally driven programme level data on oral health professional education across Europe.

In addition to the publication of the peer-reviewed article, the team has also made available an O-Health-Edu IO01 infographic summarising all salient points. These outputs of IO01 have fed directly into IO02 a synopsis of the current state of Oral Health professionals' Education in Europe which is currently in the consultation stage with relevant stakeholder from education, student, regulatory, practice, and public health sectors. The O-Health-Edu team expects that IO02 will near completion by late October.

Speaking on behalf of the University of Sheffield lead partner on IO01, Jonathan Dixon commented:

It is a pleasure to present intellectual output 1 of the O-Health-Edu project: A scoping review on the reporting of Oral Health Professional education in Europe. This emphasises the importance of the O-Health-Edu project and I would like to thank all partners and stakeholders for their input.

Prof Stéphanie Tubert- Jeannin, Project Co-ordinator lead with Faculté de Chirurgie Dentaire, University of Clermont Ferrand commented:

The COVID-19 pandemic has again highlighted the need to have up to date, reliable information about the reality of oral health professional's education in Europe. The O-Health-Edu project has three overacting objectives, one being to acquire a comprehensive view of oral health professionals education  in Europe.  I am very happy to acknowledge the fulfilment of IO01 with the publication of this manuscript. I would like to thank all the partners involved in the Project and particularly the University of Sheffield who is leading out on this IO. They delivered excellent work that will be the basis for the next steps of the project.  Indeed, the O-Health-Edu project is based on a vision to; participate in improving oral health, to facilitate access for all to appropriate dental care (preventive and curative), by educating the needed, competent health professionals for the future.