Integrating Competency-Based Didactic and Experiential Global Health Learning for Dental Students: The Global Health Learning Helix Model

A Scoping Review of Internationalization of Dental Education—Identifying Formats and Motivations in Dental Education

Background

Internationalization efforts, including global health activities, in dental education can play an important role in preparing future oral healthcare professionals. To date, in the available literature, there is no common understanding of what internationalization of dental education might mean, and there are no agreed upon standards relating to, or a common definition of the term internationalization of dental education. Here, the authors investigate what has been published in the above area from 01/01/2000 to 12/31/2020, identifying perceived motivations and formats. A proposed definition and connection to the field of international higher education is provided.

Methods

A scoping review of published literature was performed and identified 47 relevant articles. The articles were thematically sorted based on educational formats and concepts (previously established in international higher education) and motivations.

Results

Despite the paucity of articles directly addressing internationalization of dental education, there was a large variety of articles on topics that were identified to correlate with international higher education, ranging from international partnerships, student mobility, and language, to international curriculum at home—with different perceived motivations, including competition, international understanding, and social transformation.

Discussion

More research on internationalization of dental education is needed to provide guidelines and formalize standards for international educational goals to better align formats and motivations for international efforts in dental education.

A Systematic Review of Global Health Assessment for Education in Healthcare Professions

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Crossing the Innovation Chasm: Identifying Facilitators and Barriers to Early Adoption of the Global Health Starter Kit Curriculum

Purpose:

The Global Health Starter Kit (GHSK) is an interdisciplinary, competency-based, open access global health curriculum covering global disease and demographic trends, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the connection between oral health and overall health, social determinants of health, and concepts of sustainable and ethical global health programs. In this study, we evaluate and describe barriers to and facilitators for using and implementing the GHSK curriculum across a variety of new users.

Methods:

This two-phase study uses the Roger’s Adoption Curve concept to standardize this evaluation and inform a strategic plan for continuing to move the curriculum across the chasm from early adopters to an early majority of global oral health educators and learners. We utilized a theoretical adoption framework to identify facilitators and barriers under the domains of innovation and curricular, educator and learner, and institutional and structural factors. Under qualitative Phase 1, five early adopter institutions were interviewed to elicit understanding of factors that contribute to adoption of the GHSK curriculum. Common themes identified were next used to create a Phase 2 quantitative survey for early majority subscribers of the GHSK (N = 27).

Results:

These qualitative and quantitative results showed an overall high satisfaction with the quality of the GHSK materials, but also effectively identified barriers to its adoption, including inexperience of faculty in teaching global oral health, a lack of awareness and marketing, and absence of global health accrediting requirements.

Conclusions:

By identifying the barriers and facilitators of GHSK curriculum integration, this study provides concrete and specific opportunities to improve its format, relevance, content, and delivery. This study outlines next steps to creating a standardized approach to successfully adopting competency-based global oral health teaching and learning.

Integrating Global Health Within Dental Education: Inter-University Collaboration for Scaling Up a Pilot Curriculum

Background:

New education programs are developing to improve global health awareness. Dental students have demonstrated interest in international settings but are largely unaware of global health topics. The Timothy A. DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health of the University of Washington (UW) and Harvard School of Dental Medicine expanded a competency-based global health curriculum (Global Health Starter Kit) by integrating it within the UW School of Dentistry (UW SOD) existing elective course “Global Oral Health” to undergraduates, pre-, and doctorate students from the UW SOD and Public Health. The study objective was to evaluate the curriculum effectiveness by assessing 1) Knowledge and Attitudes (survey), and 2) Didactic coursework (global trends, global goals, primary care, social determinants and risks, and ethics and sustainability).

Methods:

Eligibility included enrolled students with both pre- and post-assessments. Descriptive statistics were conducted to present demographic data. Significant changes on survey and didactic evaluations were analyzed with paired t-tests (p < 0.05).

Findings:

The population (N = 15) represented 88% of the class. All Knowledge categories had a significant increase (p < 0.05), except in the topic of tropical diseases. At baseline, Attitudes categories had high scores and did not significantly increase by the end of the course. Even though all Didactic categories improved, only Social Determinants and Risks showed a significant increase (p < 0.01).

Conclusion:

Competency-based global health learning can be implemented in the dental curriculum. While the study shows promising results, efforts to identify areas for improvement as well as considerations of the institution’s culture need to be assessed and addressed for each teaching cycle.