Between the 23rd – 25th March 2021 the ACFF Pan-European Chapter held its annual Collaborative Council meeting. The Pan-European Collaborative Council brings together organisations and associations from across Europe that work in oral health practice, policy and research. Many of these organisations do not regularly work closely together, and the meeting is a fantastic opportunity for alignment and focus on developing collaborative plans towards working for a cavity-free future.
The Council is made up of representatives from: Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE), European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry (EAPD), European Association for Dental Public Health (EADPH), European Dental Hygienists Federation (EDHF), European Dental Students Association (EDSA), European Organisation for Caries Research (ORCA) and Platform for Better Oral Health in Europe (PBOHE) along with multiple independent experts.
The event was co-chaired by the Chapter Chairs Prof. Nigel Pitts, King’s College London, and Prof. Svante Twetman, University of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the Collaborative Council could not meet in person this year for the first time since its launch in 2013. Instead, the Chapter spread the meeting over three virtual sessions across three days, so that attendees could fit the meetings in with their schedules and avoid videocall fatigue.
The meeting started with an informal evening social session, with Marco Mazevet of King’s College London delivering a presentation on an ongoing experiment in France into new ways of remunerating dental professionals for preventative dentistry, which is hoped will be a milestone in the fight against dental caries. Over the following days, the Council met in earnest with discussions covering several issues relating to the contemporary dental landscape. Included in this was a presentation on the ACFF’s Taskforce for Making Cavities History and the Global Consensus for achieving a dental cavity-free future that has just been published, which is designed to work synergistically with the FDI’s Vision 2030 as well as the upcoming WHO Oral Health Resolution, which the ACFF hopes will be accepted at the WHA in May.
It was wonderful to see so many people coming together from such a range of organisations, some of whom had been attending the Council meetings for many years, and others for whom it was their first time. The Pan-European Chapter succeeds only through collaborative work like this, bringing together viewpoints, ideas and expertise from all aspects of the oral health community and ensuring that we work together towards a cavity-free future.