Evidence-based cariology in clinical and public health practice as part of the European Core Curriculum in Cariology.

This paper is part of a series of papers contributing towards a European Core Curriculum in Cariology for undergraduate dental students. The European Core Curriculum in Cariology is the outcome of a process starting in 2006 and culminating in a joint workshop of the European Organization for Caries Research together with the Association for Dental Education in Europe, which was held in Berlin from 27 to 30 June 2010. The scope of this paper is to present the evidence-based cariology in clinical and public health section of the European Core Curriculum in Cariology. This section was developed on the basis of international consensus on the current and future educational needs in the fields of cariology and disorders of dental hard tissues. The paper will deal with the core skills of evidence-based dental practice within the undergraduate curriculum underpinning the dual facets of clinical cariology (relating particularly to individuals) and public health cariology (relating particularly to groups/societies). Core competencies in evidence-based dentistry, which are generic to the undergraduate curriculum as a whole and not only cariology, are integral to lifelong learning skills within dentistry. As the clinical cariology competencies in assessment and management of caries for the individual patient are dealt with within other sections of the European Core Curriculum in Cariology, only a few relevant examples will be presented here, but for Public Health Cariology, the competencies will be explored within this document and their relationship to the principles of evidence-based dentistry discussed.