Research Agenda

Board takeaway

• Use the research agenda to identify what question remains unanswered and what kind of study would help.

Clinical research

• Improve diagnosis, prevention, and management of oral, dental, and craniofacial conditions.
• Study new caries prevention and management agents and technologies.
• Advance minimally invasive care and preservation of natural teeth.
• Investigate personalized oral health care and tools that support health monitoring and self-care.

Interdisciplinary research

• Reduce oral health disparities while improving oral and systemic health.
• Examine behavioral and social determinants, craniofacial development, microbiology, and the microbiome.
• Study patient and professional education, evidence-based public health interventions, and clinical trials involving children and vulnerable populations.
• Evaluate dentistry’s integration into broader health care, care quality, and collaboration across professions.
• Develop knowledge through bioinformatics and data analysis; study telehealth and teledentistry.
• Evaluate AI’s effects on diagnosis, treatment, other clinical care, and patient and provider experiences.

Translating evidence into care and policy

• Move scientific knowledge into clinical practice and policy through education, dissemination, and implementation.
• Identify and reduce barriers to adopting evidence-based care.
• Build partnerships among academic, policy, and practice communities.

Operational safety and environmental impact

• Study protection of patients and dental teams from infection transmission and other health care hazards.
• Priorities include infection control, protective equipment, waterline disinfection, and sterilization methods.
• Address environmental effects both on dentistry and from dentistry, plus clinicians’ mental and physical well-being.

Match the study to the unanswered question

Match the research question to the problem. A diagnostic tool needs evidence of clinical performance and consequences. An effective intervention that is rarely used may instead need research on access, implementation, education, or workflow.

• The Council on Scientific Affairs updates and affirms the agenda, and AAPD calls on academic, government, philanthropic, and corporate funders to support these priorities.
• Listing a technology as a research priority does not endorse its effectiveness or clinical use.

Answer aloud

Where does a study of AI-assisted caries diagnosis fit?

It spans clinical and interdisciplinary research: clinical research tests whether diagnosis improves, while the agenda explicitly includes AI’s effects on clinical care and patient/provider experience under interdisciplinary work.

• The question should address the proposed tool’s consequences in care; being a research priority is not an endorsement of routine use.

Evidence exists, but practices rarely adopt it. What research is needed?

This calls for translational research on dissemination and implementation: why evidence does not reach routine practice, what barriers clinicians face, and which educational approaches improve adoption.

• Partnerships among academic, policy, and practice communities can help study and close that gap.
• Producing another efficacy study alone may not resolve an implementation problem.