A new collection of the Journal of the California Dental Association discusses the significant benefits of adopting or maintaining eco-friendly practices in the dental office for a healthy global environment without disrupting high-quality care for patients.
“All dentists have a unique opportunity to lead by example by reducing their clinic’s carbon footprint through thoughtful decision-making for materials, technology and patient education,” write guest editors Nader A. Nadershahi, DDS, MBA, EdD, and David M. Ojcius, PhD, in the introduction to Dentistry: Our Sustainable Future. “By reevaluating procedures, reducing waste and advocating sustainable practices, the dental profession can make a meaningful contribution to the global fight against climate change.”
Read on for summaries of select articles and a case report that offer strategies for integrating sustainability into the dental practice.
Sustainability in dentistry: An overview and a C.E. opportunity
In dentistry, CO2 emissions related to staff and patient travel account for the greatest carbon footprint, and single-use plastics produce the greatest waste.
In “Sustainability in Dentistry: An Overview for Oral Healthcare Team Members,” authors Donna M. Hackley, DMD, MA, MPH, and Jennifer Luca, DMD, MS, provide an overview of the health impacts of climate change, summarize key concepts on sustainable practices in dentistry and highlight opportunities for oral health care teams to take action in the areas of antibiotics and nitrous oxide use; plastics, including in toothbrushes and product packaging; and energy use in office infrastructure.
Dentists can read the article and successfully complete a short quiz to earn .5 units C.E. credit.
Assessing the travel carbon footprint at a dental school
Transportation, primarily via patient and staff travel to and from dental offices, contributes most of dentistry’s carbon emissions — 64.5% according to a 2018 study.
Authors Yuying Guo, DMD, Jason Juang, DMD, Elizabeth Durham, DMD, Rindala Fayyad, MS, and Donna Hackley, DMD, MA, MPH, conducted a cross-sectional survey to investigate Harvard School of Dental Medicine’s travel-related carbon footprint. “Assessing the Travel Carbon Footprint of Faculty, Students, and Staff at a U.S. Dental School” presents the results of this study with a discussion of survey respondents’ views on how transportation contributes to climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on travel and how income and other factors affect transportation choices.
“In shedding light on these areas, we encourage the HSDM community and other oral health institutions to adopt more environmentally sustainable transportation options,” the authors conclude.
Impacts of climate change on oral health and dentistry
In “Impacts of Climate Change on Oral Health and Dentistry – Why Should Dentists Care and What Can They Do?”, Nancy Hu, DDS, discusses the impacts of extreme weather events, heat and cold stress, poor air quality, water scarcity and pollution, a prolonged allergy season and food shortages on dental facilities and individuals, concluding, “Climate change profoundly impacts oral health, and dentistry itself contributes to environmental degradation, underscoring the urgent need for sustainable practices within the field.”
Dr. Hu presents actionable strategies for integrating sustainability into clinical practice, including through early disease detection and prevention, high-quality operative care, travel reduction and reusable supplies. Outside of clinical practice, dentists can work with vendors, engage with policymakers, educate their colleagues and partake in professional associations to enhance sustainability in dentistry.
Also included in this collection: “Climate Change and Health: The Opportunity for Oral Health Professionals to be Champions of Sustainability” by Allison Neale, Jennifer Kim Field and Stefanie Fleige.
School nurses surveyed about children’s oral health needs
As CDA announced last month, the CDA Journal is now featuring research by California dental students in every Journal collection rather than in one or two special collections each year.
Caitlin Neapole, a fourth-year student at University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry, together with Vinodh Bhoopathi, DScD, associate professor at UCLA School of Dentistry, surveyed school nurses to determine if they (1) witness children complain of pain in the mouth and teeth, (2) see children with root tips and (3) are willing to conduct annual oral health screenings. They present the results in “California School Nurses Report on Oral Health Needs of Children and Willingness to Conduct Annual Oral Health Screenings”
Read the full collection, Dentistry: Our Sustainable Future, which also includes the latest scientific dentistry news.