Dental education and prison health: A scoping review

There is a huge oral disease burden among imprisoned people. Comprehensive guidelines are available on prison dentistry. Prison dental education is important to increase the quality and quantity of the dental workforce in prisons. It improves student perceptions about imprisoned people and gives students a sense of social responsibility and accountability.

The aim of the scoping review was to determine what is known in the literature about teaching pre-doctoral dental students about prison health.

A literature search was conducted on seven databases accessed through the Public Health England knowledge and library services. These databases were AMED, Embase, Emcare, Medline, Social Care Institute for Excellence, Web of Science, and Social Care Online. Appraisal of quality was done for included studies.

Eleven papers were included in the review, all of which are based in the USA. Two articles looked at dental students as one group engaged in prison health education while five considered imprisoned people as one of the vulnerable populations focused on dental education. Only four articles solely looked at prison dental education. Program design with a collaborative approach between prisons and teaching institutions, and the positive impact of prison health education on dental students emerged as important.

The evidence suggests prison dental education to be important in reducing the high burden of oral diseases among the incarcerated by influencing the present and future prison dental workforce. It also improves students' understanding of social determinants of health. Further studies are needed to determine the most effective teaching methods and models.