Updated 2026
Written by Dr Sam — practising dentist, Australia, and the clinician behind this directory. About the author →
Preventive oral health, at the population-and-practice level, is a different discipline from chairside prevention — it asks which patients aren’t in your chair at all, and why. The free CPD in this space covers community water fluoridation evidence, oral health promotion that actually changes behaviour, inequality and access (the patients whose postcode predicts their DMFT), and school- and aged-care-based programmes where dental teams increasingly contribute.
For clinicians, the practical value is twofold. It sharpens the one-to-one work — understanding health literacy and the social determinants behind a ‘non-compliant’ family changes how you counsel them — and it opens career surface area, because public health roles, community programmes and policy consultations all draw on exactly this knowledge. If your CPD record is wall-to-wall clinical technique, an hour here is a genuinely broadening correction.
A snapshot of the current directory: the strict topic matcher identifies 240 courses relevant to Preventive Oral Health & Promotion across 31 providers. 238 are marked as having certificates, and 25 run two CPD hours or longer.
FreeDentalCPD lists free courses covering caries prevention, periodontal maintenance, fluoride, oral hygiene, dietary advice, behaviour change and risk-based care. The dynamic course section below draws relevant courses from the live directory.
Browse free preventive oral health coursesWhat to look for in preventive oral health CPD
The best course is the one that changes what you do in practice. For this topic, useful CPD should be relevant to your role, clearly presented and easy to record for your continuing professional development requirements.
- Check whether a certificate is available after completion.
- Look for content that is directly relevant to your patients and daily responsibilities.
- Prioritise practical guidance rather than purely promotional material.
- Keep a record of the provider, course title, date completed and CPD hours.
Providers and courses worth comparing
Relevant courses may appear across several education platforms rather than one single provider. These are the types of sources worth checking in the FreeDentalCPD directory.
- Colgate Oral Health Network
- Philips Oral Healthcare Learning
- Viva Learning
- SDI Learning
- VOCO Learning
How to choose the right course
The most useful preventive CPD is practical and patient-facing. Look for courses that improve how you assess risk, explain disease processes, choose preventive interventions and support daily home care.
For most dental professionals, it is sensible to combine focused learning in this area with broader CPD in prevention, communication, clinical updates and compliance.
Latest courses from the directory
- Evidence-Based Prevention: Implementing Caries Risk Assessment Protocols
- Silver Diamine Fluoride and Beyond: Caries Management & Prevention for Adult Patients
- Evidence-Based Prevention: Implementing Caries Risk Assessment Protocols Into Your Practice
- CARIES: Science and Prevention
- CARIES: Science and Prevention. Recorded
- Fluoride Varnish and Risk Assessment Part 2: Overcoming Barriers in Your Practice
- Fluoride Varnish and Risk Assessment: Are you Practicing Traditional Dentistry or Evidence-Based Patient Care
- Prevention - The Base for Good Oral Health and Restorative Success
- Prevention for Life: The Latest in Caries Prevention and Minimally-Invasive Dentistry
- Fluoride and Dental Caries: A Powerful Partnership
- Dental Caries - Examining the Evolution of Detection, Intervention, and Prevention
- Improving your Caries Prevention Protocol in High Risk Adults
Showing 12 of 273 relevant courses from the directory. 271 are marked as having certificates. Open the filtered directory.
Frequently asked questions
Who should complete preventive oral health CPD?
Dentists, hygienists, therapists, oral health therapists, dental nurses and practice teams can all benefit from preventive CPD.
What topics are included in preventive oral health?
Caries prevention, periodontal maintenance, fluoride, oral hygiene instruction, diet, smoking cessation, risk assessment and patient motivation are common topics.
Do preventive CPD courses provide certificates?
Many courses do provide certificates, but availability varies between providers and individual courses. Check the listing before enrolling.
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