Description of Presentation: Climate change is the leading global public health threat. Health care, including dentistry, contributes 10 percent of the total greenhouse gases in the US. Session participants will collaborate to outline the impact of dentistry on the environment, struggles of practicing environmentally friendly measures in dentistry, and strategies to overcome them.
Learning Objectives:
Describe the importance of collaboration between environmental specialists, industry, health care staff, doctors, and patients to identify areas of high environmental impact in the oral health space
Identify different ways the current dental practice model impacts the environment and describe ways to implement change to decrease dentistry’s carbon footprint
Understand the environmental benefits of focusing on a preventative oral health model to encourage decreased oral disease burden and subsequent reduction in the dental carbon footprint