Anthropology meets Dentistry in Central America: Research and Education in Oral Biology

Abstract

A transcontinental effort for interdisciplinary work exploring oral health in the Central American groups most affected by oral ailments (including indigenous populations but also student cohorts), motivated the organization of a Wenner-Grenn-founded workshop entitled “Anthropology meets Dentistry in Central America: Education and Research in Oral Biology” or “The AnthropologyCA workshop”. This workshop represented a joint effort of the Vienna School of Interdisciplinary Dentistry (VieSID), and the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Costa Rica and took place in March 2023, 6th to 8th, to discuss possible undertakings intended to explore research and educational topics of interest for the advancement of oral health in Central America. Thirty-two expert anthropologists and clinicians from the Americas and Europe, and representatives of the Central American Higher Education Council (Consejo Superior Universitario Centroamericano, CSUCA) met with the aim to identify the most pressing issues representing clinical challenges in Costa Rica as in other Central American countries and discuss possible research projects and educational endeavours specifically designed to address them. Some of the topics discussed during the AnthropologyCA workshop were further elaborated on and compiled to give form to the current Dossier of the Revista Argentina de Antropología Biológica which aims to draw attention to the compelling issue of how to study the oral health conditions in individuals from Central America by combining anthropological and dentistry approaches.