A Framework to Establish Diet and Nutrition Competencies for Oral Health Care Education

To prevent and manage oral disease, oral health care practitioners (OHCPs) must provide dietary counseling based on nutrition science. OHCPs are often ill-equipped to provide such counseling due to fragmented and inadequate dietary education, which is typically attributed to limited curricular time or appropriately qualified faculty. Perhaps a more significant barrier is the absence of agreement on diet and nutrition competencies to guide oral health curricular content. Our objective was to define a framework of diet and nutrition competencies for the graduating oral health care student.

Initially, we identified the core diet and nutrition knowledge and associated educational objectives necessary to facilitate effective dietary counseling to support oral health. Subsequently, we identified behavioral expectations with evaluation criteria for diet and nutrition oral health competencies.

Diet and nutrition oral health domains secondary to food choices, dietary behaviors, and/or nutrient intakes included caries, erosion, periodontal disease, and oral cancer, while outcomes of oral disease impacting food choices and dietary behaviors included oral dysfunction. Fundamental diet and nutrition principles supporting oral and systemic health and counseling skillsets were identified. Behavioral expectations for OHCPs for each oral health domain were articulated. For example, the behavioral expectation for caries competency is "Identifies and addresses diet-related caries risk factors within the context of environmental and social barriers."

A framework to identify the knowledge base for and define diet and nutrition oral health competencies is presented as a foundation to advance diet and nutrition-related oral health education.