“Oral Health for Community Health Workers in Africa” – a dental student reflection on an OpenWHO course

This is a guest post written by George Kafera, a Final Year student on the Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree course at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences.

My Profile 

I am George Kafera, a final year dental student at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, aiming to graduate this coming December. I am passionate about dental public health, data analytics and academics. I am constantly reading and writing more on dental public health to sharpen my skills and shape my career path. My ambition is to become a senior figure in dental public health in Malawi not many years from now, helping to enhance oral and dental health for all Malawians. I would be glad to receive any mentorship or help from anyone which could help me to achieve this goal. 

How I found the OpenWHO course 

Following the multi-sectoral child oral health workshop in Mponela, where the results of the first Malawi National Child Oral Health Survey were being disseminated on 15th and 16th May, 2024, the MalDent Project blog published a post on 25 May which summarised the workshop content and outcomes. This blog mentioned a recorded lecture by Dr. Yuka Makino, the WHO Technical Officer for Africa, who highlighted the scale of dental problems in the WHO African region. It was pointed out that prevention should be the ultimate goal in addressing oral diseases in Africa. Dr Makino, Prof Bagg and his team recommended a free course that provided helpful teaching materials on oral disease prevention: OpenWHO course ‘Oral Health Training Course for Community Health Workers in Africa’. I enrolled on the course and obtained my certificate on May 31, 2024:

Why I took the course 

I took the course to improve my knowledge on how I can give simple and well understood information during dental awareness campaigns. I saw that the course would help me teach leaders of the community and schools on maintaining good oral health, as not everyone can have a chance of taking this course. Since I am deeply interested in public health, I saw this course as an opportunity to learn and sharpen my skills towards my career path of dental public health. 

What I learned 

The course had five modules encompassing basic, yet important, information on oral health with its focus on public health. Module one was on general oral health, covering pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and older people. This was followed by module two on common oral diseases, risk factors and oral screenings. Module three covered oral health promotion and oral disease prevention and management. Module four was very important as it aligned with public health, dealing with school and community based oral health promotion. The last module discussed oral health data monitoring and management. 

How it will be useful in my life 

The course simplified oral health and will be my teaching aid to the community whenever a need arises. It has also inspired me to increase my interest in public health following the statistics and general facts about oral health I learnt through doing this course. It also reminded me of the basics of oral health and what one needs to focus on to play a role in the community. I would encourage my fellow students to take the course – it is a very important teaching aid when giving oral health instruction and when community dentistry is needed.