WHO Collaborating Center for Training and Research in Dental

Public Health

The school of dentistry at SBMU has over forty years of training experience with annual admission capacity of about 100 undergraduates, postgraduates, as well as allied dental health students. Dental public health residency program, as a new specialty in Iran was recognised in 1999 by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of which SBMU is the pioneering institution to offer this postgraduate training in the country.   This program revolves around the following ten core competencies:

1.     Planning oral health program for communities

2.     Selecting interventions and strategies for the prevention of oral diseases and promotion of oral health

3. Implementation and management of oral health programs for communities

4. Incorporation of ethical standards with cultural and social sensitivity in oral health programs

5. Evaluation and monitoring of oral health programs for population dental care delivery systems

6. Design and use of surveillance system to monitor oral health

7. Communication and collaboration with groups and individuals engaged in oral health issues

8. Advocacy for implementation and evaluation of public health policy, legislation and regulations to protect and promote the public oral health

9. Critique and synthesis of scientific literature

10. Designing and conducting community based studies to answer oral and public health questions

      The COH Department has number of concentration including Oral Health Economics, Oral Health Policy, and Administration of oral health services and Research.  The departmentžs research areas are focused on Oral Cancers, Financing Dental Care, Evaluations of Determinants of Oral Health and Self-Care, Special Need Populations such as Diabetics, Geriatric and Children Oral Health and other priority groups with systematic diseases. At the national level, the COH department has close cooperation with the Deputies for Health, Education and Research of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Vice Chancellors for Education, Health and Research of Shaheed Beheshti Medical University. 

The Department is also involved in national oral health development programs in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOH&ME) in selected areas of Primary Health Care.  The Department is in collaboration with other national health authorities and organizations such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Welfare and has close cooperation with Civil Society and NGOs (including the charity organization called Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation).

     Our focus is grounded in the belief that dental public health is a single unit of a larger knowledge to action cycle in health promotion in our region.  The COH department is facilitating the implementation of research and training for specialists in this field in order to conduct the necessary prevention, management, education and research, program planning, performance   and monitoring throughout the Region.  This Department is also an active branch of the International Association for Dental Research and also has close cooperation with the Cochrane Collaboration Group and in March 2010 has been officially recognized as a WHO Collaborating Center for Training and Research in Dental Public Health by WHO.