Abstract
Background summary: Oral health care is important for overall health and well-being, but its significance is currently underemphasised across health settings due to various barriers encountered by health care providers and consumers.
Why conduct a workshop? Poor oral health is a global public health challenge. The combined global prevalence of oral diseases has remained unchanged at 45% over 30 years, a rate higher than other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Further, the direct treatment costs of oral diseases continue to account for a large proportion of health expenditure in many countries. Additionally, oral diseases impact the management of chronic diseases and disproportionately affect vulnerable and at-risk populations. Oral health care is a major issue that requires urgent attention. Unfortunately, the conventional surgical and biomedical approach of managing oral diseases has failed to reduce the disease burden, due to its failure to address the multitude of societal issues that impact oral health and the complex dynamics involved at a population level. A paradigm shift towards a primary health care approach – designed to position oral health as part of general health and vice versa – is required to address the individual, social and economic burdens associated with oral and other chronic diseases. The Australian Network for the Integration of Oral Health, and its research counterpart The Australian Centre for Integration of Oral Health are dedicated to this social change; and will conduct a workshop on strategies to integrate oral health into primary care. This is in alignment with the strategic objectives of the World Health Organization’s soon-to-be-released Global Oral Health Action Plan; particularly: 80% of countries will have oral health care services provided in primary care settings by 2030.
Who is it for? All health and care professionals, researchers, policymakers, community partners and professional/consumer groups interested in improving oral health in primary care.
What are you going to do?
Learning objectives
- Understand the importance of including oral health in the management of clients with chronic disease.
- Identify the barriers faced by health professionals to including oral health in the management of their clients.
- Identify effective evidenced based strategies to integrating oral health into primary care.
- Identify resources that can assist health professionals to integrate oral health into their practice.
- Reflect on how health professionals could begin integrating oral health into their routine practice.
Workshop structure (60mins)
- Initial ice-breaker activities with participants using online polling (QR code scanning) to gauge the composition and disciplines of participants (5mins)
- Presentations from experts highlighting the rationale/benefits for inclusion of oral health in primary care, barriers in this area and effective strategies for integration (20mins).
- Group discussions using case studies to illustrate application of integration strategies. (15mins)
- Reflective exercise with participants using interactive activities (online word clouds etc) to identify perceived barriers in their practices for integration and identification of potential solutions. (15mins)
- Conclusion and take-home checklist for integration of oral health (5mins)
Presenters: Senior academics, clinicians and policy makers from the fields of Public Health/Nursing/Midwifery/Pharmacy and Dentistry