Author’s note: Throughout my career my focus has been to help shift our industry toward prevention. As a founding board member of the Oral Health Prevention Summit, I am committed to bringing people together to move that work forward. Today, the shifts I see make our next steps more urgent: consumers (our patients) are increasingly interested in oral wellness, new forms of artificial intelligence are accelerating innovation, and generational changes are reshaping expectations of care, careers, and leadership. It is time to make prevention the starting point for every conversation about dentistry’s future. As hygienists, now is the time for us to use our voices and help take the lead. We have the clinical insight, patient relationships, and preventive foundation to influence what comes next. I am asking us to bring our expertise forward, challenge outdated assumptions, and help build the systems our patients need.
Prevention has always been central to our professional identity as dental hygienists. Making it the foundation of an entire industry requires better information, earlier action, and systems that make protecting health practical and sustainable. In my previous article, “Should Prevention Be Dentistry’s Main Focus?” I called for prevention grounded in information we can track, measure, and use to personalize care.¹ This becomes possible as our tools expand.
I see the next chapter through four connected P’s: pattern recognition, prediction, personalization, and precision prevention. Together, they describe how we can move from collecting observations to understanding a patient’s trajectory and intervening while we can still change it.
How Will Earlier Diagnosis and Treatment Advance Preventive Dentistry?
Before we consistently prevent disease from developing, I believe we will become better at recognizing it earlier and treating it earlier.
To do so, we need to understand where each step fits. Finding an early lesion is early diagnosis, intervening to arrest or reverse it is early treatment and helps prevent progression. Preventing that lesion from developing in the first place remains our longer-term goal. I believe our role is shifting to advance all three.
For example, biomimetic self-assembling peptides illustrate the possibilities of earlier intervention. Peptides such as P11-4 have been studied for their ability to support remineralization of early, noncavitated carious lesions. A randomized clinical trial evaluated P11-4 with fluoride and reported benefits for initial caries lesions.² These approaches expand our options for managing disease before substantial tooth structure is lost, while appropriate diagnosis and restorative treatment remain essential when indicated.
Our current opportunity is to recognize changes sooner, collaborate on appropriate care, and document the response. Each step helps build a more proactive clinical model and has the ability to advance entire communities on their path to health.
How Can Scanning and Salivary Testing Help Us Recognize Oral Health Patterns?
We can’t pull meaningful patterns from information we never collect. Our hygiene workflow is a critical starting point as we regularly collect a significant amount of patient data already. However, we can now capture that information consistently and make it useful across visits, allowing technology to read and analyze the data in ways the human brain can never do.
I want us to bring intraoral scanning into the hygiene workflow where it can support baseline records, patient communication, and monitoring. Serial scans have been investigated for measuring tooth wear over time.³ With reliable acquisition and appropriate interpretation, they can help us make changes more visible to the team and the patient.
Salivary testing adds another dimension. We can now measure a biomarker associated with active periodontal inflammation and collagen breakdown: activated matrix metalloproteinase-8, or aMMP-8, providing information about this biological activity that can complement our clinical findings.⁴ We gain another way to investigate what is happening, rather than relying exclusively on what we can see or measure mechanically.
We can also use salivary-rinse testing to support earlier evaluation for oral cancer in appropriately selected patients. This new technology analyzes DNA mutations and is indicated as an adjunct for adults with a visible, indeterminate oral lesion.⁵ It can help inform the next step in evaluation; it does not replace examination, referral, or biopsy when indicated.
Human DNA introduces another area of possibility. These once-in-a-lifetime tests can test for genetic variants associated with susceptibility to periodontal disease and investigate genetic factors related to caries. However, identifying an associated variant does not establish whether a patient will develop disease. Current evidence does not support human DNA testing as a reliable stand-alone predictor of future periodontal disease or caries.⁶ We must interpret genetic information alongside clinical findings, behaviors, medical history, and environmental factors (which is where the dental hygienist comes in).
I envision a future in which taking a saliva sample at every hygiene visit could contribute to a meaningful longitudinal record, when validated tests and a clear clinical purpose support that frequency. Today, the decision to test or retest should reflect whether the information will change care.
The goal is to collect information that helps us make better decisions. AI may help identify relationships across these records. Researchers are exploring machine learning for dental diagnosis, prognosis, and risk assessment, although validation, fairness, and reporting remain challenges.⁷ Dental hygienists supply the clinical context that gives a pattern meaning.
How Can AI Help Predict Oral Disease Risk?
Once we recognize a pattern, we can ask what may happen next. Imagine a patient whose medication list changes, who reports dry-mouth symptoms, and whose eating habits shift toward frequent snacking. Connecting those findings can prompt us to reassess caries risk and intervene sooner.
Predictive AI models aim to estimate the likelihood of future outcomes. Their potential lies in helping us identify who may need closer assessment or additional preventive support. Keep in mind a prediction is a probability and its usefulness depends on how well the model performs for the patients we actually serve and whether its output leads to an appropriate action.
As hygienists, it is now our job to become AI literate by asking which information informed the estimate, how the tool was validated, and what the result supports. Our responsibility is to translate credible information into care.
Doing this can strengthen our patient conversations as we can explain the changes we are seeing, discuss their possible implications, and identify steps we can take together. Risk becomes something we can address before the consequences become more extensive.
How Can We Personalize Preventive Care for Each Patient?
Knowing a patient’s risk is only part of the work. We also need to understand the person living with that risk. Two people with similar clinical findings may need different approaches. One may have limited dexterity. Another may be balancing caregiving responsibilities, financial constraints, or a work schedule that makes consistent routines difficult.
We hear those details, and we understand why a reasonable recommendation may be difficult to follow. AI may help organize information or support tailored education, but it’s our role to evaluate its suggestions and develop the plan with our patients.
Personalization includes clinical needs, preferences, abilities, and access. For one person, that may mean adapting home-care instruction. For another, it may involve addressing dietary habits, discussing appropriate remineralization strategies, or coordinating with a medical professional. We know the plan must be evidence-based and feasible…and our relationships help make both possible.
What Is Precision Prevention, and How Can Remote Monitoring Support It?
Precision prevention brings the first three P’s into an ongoing process: recognize patterns, assess future risk, personalize an intervention, and measure the response. We establish a baseline. We act. We reassess. We adjust.
Increasingly, that process can extend into daily life. Connected toothbrushes already offer ways to capture brushing behaviors and support remote feedback. Research has explored monitoring brushing frequency, duration, and pressure, as well as using smartphone-connected systems to provide personalized guidance.⁸
Looking ahead, there are tools in development to remotely monitor more of the conditions that influence oral health, including salivary pH, brushing habits, and additional biological and behavioral signals. Imagine being able to recognize a sustained change between appointments and offer timely support. That could make prevention more responsive to what is happening in a patient’s life.
To do this, we will need patient consent, reliable data, and clear plans for responding. Information becomes useful when we know what to do with it. A scan, saliva result, or AI-generated risk estimate has value when it contributes to a sound decision and a meaningful outcome. We should ask whether our approach helps preserve tooth structure, control disease activity, support effective behaviors, and protect health over time.
How Can We Lead the Shift Toward Prevention in Dentistry?
The four P’s will require changes beyond the operatory. We need time to assess and educate. We need training to interpret new information. We need workflows that connect medical and dental care. We need financial models that support preventive services and follow-up. And I want dental hygienists involved in designing those systems.
We know where a promising idea becomes difficult during an appointment. We see which recommendations patients struggle to follow and where earlier action might have changed the course of care. That knowledge belongs in discussions with educators, practice leaders, technology developers, manufacturers, and policymakers.
We can begin by examining our own workflows: what we collect, how consistently we document it, how we monitor change, and how we use the findings to guide care. Then we must bring what we learn into the larger conversation.
Join Us and Help Move Prevention Forward
On January 27, 2027, join us in Boston, Massachusetts, for the 3rd Annual Oral Health Prevention Summit, held the day before Yankee Dental Congress.¹⁰˒¹¹
This year’s theme, “The Convergence of Prevention: Where Science and Systems Intersect,” reflects the work ahead. The summit is a collaborative forum connecting clinical care with policy, advocacy, medical-dental integration, innovation, and the practical systems that support prevention.¹⁰˒¹¹
As a founding board member, I want our profession represented in that room. Bring the questions you encounter in practice. Bring the barriers your patients face. Bring your ideas about what we should measure, how we should intervene, and what needs to change.
This is our chance to make a difference in the future of our industry.
We have spent our careers helping patients protect their health. Now we must help shape an industry that makes that work a greater priority.
Rise, take the lead, and join us in Boston.
Learn more and register for the Oral Health Prevention Summit.
References
Turner MK. Should Prevention Be Dentistry’s Main Focus? January 8, 2026.
Self-assembling Peptide P11-4 and Fluoride for Regenerating Enamel.
Intraoral scanner-based monitoring of tooth wear in young adults: 24-month results.
dento USA. OralFitnessCheck: Studies and Science on aMMP-8 Testing.
OrisDX. Oro Lesion: Intended Use and Testing Platform.
American Dental Association. Genetics and Oral Health.
Machine learning in dentistry: a scoping review. PLOS Digital Health.
Oral Health Prevention Summit. 2027 Sponsor Prospectus.
Oral Health Prevention Summit.January 27, 2027: Event Details and Registration.
