title: The oral ecosystem: implications for education.
abstract: We propose a model that is applicable to oral health education. The model describes the oral cavity in a complexity-based ecological context. This concept includes the premise that factors from different organisational levels (biological, individual, community, society) interact in a complex way with the potential to 'stress' the ecosystem and thereby provoke changes. This mode of action complies with the understanding of the oral cavity as a complex adaptive system. An ecological model is actively used in the undergraduate problem-based curriculum at the Faculty of Odontology, Malmö University, Sweden and has recently been applied as a conceptual basis for the new dental curriculum being established at the University of Tromsø in Northern Norway. The purpose is to encourage and promote an ecological, health-oriented view and to stimulate reflections on premises for oral health and diseases in an integrated context.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Dentistry, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway. harald.eriksen@fagmed.uit.no
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Eriksen
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dimitrov
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rohlin
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Petersson
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Svensäter
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D017753:Ecosystem; D004497:Education, Dental / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D017145:Models, Educational; D009055:Mouth / Q000382:microbiology; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D013548:Sweden; D013598:Systems Theory