Association for Dental Education in Europe

Learning together to improve oral health and quality of life

Embedding Behaviour Change in Undergraduate Curricula: From Theory to Practice

Wednesday, 20th August 2025 - 14:00 to 15:30
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Duration: 

90 minutes

Venue: 

Tangent TCDBS

Session type: 
Type 4: Organised, planned and delivered by an external group without input from ADEE
Delivered in partnership with Curaden
Pre-register as part of your ADEE 2025 meeting registration
Session synopsis: 
As dental education evolves, there is a growing need to equip future clinicians with the skills to facilitate meaningful, lasting behaviour change in their patients.

Despite evidence supporting the impact of clinician approach and communication in promoting patient health behaviour change, education often views it as supplementary component rather than a core element of clinical training, leaving students ill-prepared to translate theoretical knowledge into effective patient interactions. This workshop aims to discuss integration of behaviour change teaching into dental education, ensuring that graduates are both clinically competent and confident in their ability to engage patients in sustainable health-related behaviour change. Through structured reflection, discussion, and collaborative problem-solving, this session will help educators critically assess existing approaches, identify barriers to move beyond current methods, and develop innovative, evidence-based teaching strategies that are more practical engaging and clinically relevant.

The aim of this session, structured into three interconnected sections; Reflect, Recognise, and Reimagine, is to guide participants through an exploration of how behaviour change is currently taught, the challenges that hinder advancement, and opportunities to redesign curriculum frameworks that render behaviour change education more practical, engaging, and clinically relevant.

Chair: 

Claire C. McCarthy

Head of Dental
Canterbury Christ Church University

Dr Claire McCarthy qualified from Trinity College Dublin and has over 20 years’ experience in dental academia. She holds a PhD in Clinical Dentistry from King’s College London (KCL), focused on aerosol mitigation and ultrasonic device performance, for which she received the KCL Outstanding Thesis Award. She also holds a master’s degree in Higher and Professional Education and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Faculty of Dental Trainers. She is the newly appointed Head of Dental at Canterbury, responsible for the development and establishment of a new BSc programme in Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy and serves as Programme Director. She is also a long-standing member of faculty at King’s College London, where she has taught undergraduates and post-graduates for over two decades all aspects of non-surgical Periodontology. She previously led the BDS1 and BDS2 undergraduate Periodontology programme for eight years.

Claire has an established international academic profile as a Visiting Professor at NYU College of Dentistry since 2014, where she developed the postgraduate non-surgical periodontal programme. Her research focuses on ultrasonic instrumentation, aerosol reduction, and implant decontamination, with an emphasis on clinically translatable innovation. She was selected for the 2025 MedTech Accelerator Programme in collaboration with the London Institute of Healthcare Engineering and received the Best Pitch Award in 2026. Her work has been recognised through the Robin Davies Research Award (2020), Fellowship of the College of General Dentistry (2023), Faculty Membership of the British Society of Periodontology (2024), a KCL Teaching Award for Student Support (2025), and an award for curriculum innovation in behaviour change. She contributes to national policy and professional standards through involvement in guideline development, sits on the Council of the British Society of Dental Hygiene and Therapy (BSDHT), and serves as Chair of the Accreditation Committee for the Irish Dental Council, External Assessor for MFHEA, and is the current Staff President of the KCL Dental Society.

Jeanie Suvan

Clinical University Lecturer Oral Sciences
University of Glasgow Dental School

Jeanie achieved her dental hygiene qualification at the University of Alberta, Canada. Following work in clinical practice and teaching, she moved to the Department of Periodontology, University of Bern, Switzerland, beginning her research activities. After an MSc at the University of Oxford in Evidence Based Healthcare, she completed a PhD in Clinical Dentistry investigating obesity and periodontitis at UCL and more recently, an LLM in Medical Law and Ethics at University of Edinburgh. For many years Jeanie was involved in patient care, post-graduate teaching and clinical research at UCL Eastman Dental Institute Unit of Periodontology where she was Associate Professor and Director of the MSc Dental Hygiene Programme. Her most recent roles include part-time Clinical University Lecturer at University of Glasgow Dental School and Honorary Clinical Lecturer, University of Siena, Italy.

Learning Outcomes: 

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

  • Reflect and evaluate current approaches to teaching oral hygiene methods or risk factor control and patient engagement in dental education.
  • Recognise the barriers that limit the integration of current behaviour change techniques in curricula.
  • Reimagine strategies to address the gap between theoretical knowledge and clinical application of behaviour change principles.