What we’re doing here…. is to engineer more rapid progress, and the Policy Lab has really proved to be a fascinatingly effective tool in accelerating that needed change.
Global Chairman of the Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future, Professor Nigel Pitts of King’s College London
12 November 2019
Change is coming within the dental sector
The Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future, together with the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences and the Policy Institute are holding their second Policy Lab.
The ‘Dental Policy Lab’ has been a successful, dynamic initiative first launched in 2017 by global not-for-profit organisation, ‘The Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future’.
The event is made up of a series of collaborative workshops that bring together a diverse group of experts, challenging them with solving a pressing issue within clinical practice and public health. Ross Pow, Power of Numbers Facilitator, explains that ‘Policy Labs are a concept to try and make a breakthrough on… the biggest problems that the world faces.’
The Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future is a charity run from the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences at King’s College London, and works with the Policy Institute at King’s College London to run the annual Labs.
Previous Dental Policy Labs have explored and addressed the significant questions: ‘How do we accelerate a policy shift towards increased resource allocation for caries prevention and control?’ and ‘How can we create and implement acceptable prevention-based dental payment systems to achieve and maintain health outcomes?’
The successful events have had an immediate impact on global health policy; the 2017 Lab saw the French National Health Service (Assurance Maladie), the ICDAS / ICCMS™ Group, Chief FDI Dental Officers/Dental Public Health Section taking action based on the Lab’s findings.
The next 24-hour Dental Policy Lab is taking place from Monday 18th to Tuesday 19th November, and will focus on and vigorously explore the overarching question of ‘How can the oral and dental health industries benefit from enabling positive behaviour in caries prevention and control amongst patients and the public?’
With a range of participants from the oral and dental industries, as well as behaviour change experts, leaders from numerous sectors including national public health, leading international dental and oral health organisations, and academics, this year’s Dental Policy Lab promises to facilitate high-level discussion, challenge and collaboration to help improve oral health.
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