This document is a summary guide of basic infection prevention recommendations for all dental health care settings.
These include traditional settings such as private dental practices, dental clinics, dental schools and educational programs (including dental assisting, dental hygiene, and laboratory) and nontraditional settings that often use portable dental equipment such as clinics held in schools for sealant and fluoride placement and in other sites for humanitarian dental missions.
While the information included in this document reflects existing evidence-based guidelines produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is not intended as a replacement for more extensive guidelines. This summary guide is based primarily upon elements of Standard Precautions and represents a summary of basic infection prevention expectations for safe care in dental settings as recommended in the Guidelines for Infection Control in Dental Health-Care Settings — 2003. Readers are urged to use the Infection Prevention Checklist for Dental Settings (Appendix A), a companion to the summary; and to consult the full guidelines for additional background, rationale, and scientific evidence behind each recommendation.