Method: PBRN’s consist of dental practices that engage in coordinated practice-based research, with an academic center core to provide research support. EBD-PBRN not only provides this structure within the US, but it also coordinates with foreign academic centers to do the same collaboratively. EBD-PBRN is a global network of PBRN’s focused on the common research and practice endeavor of comparative efficacy and effectiveness research and analysis for practice (CEERAP), translational effectiveness (i.e., utilization of the best available evidence in specific clinical settings), and evidence-based dentistry.
Result: EBD-PBRN (ebd-pbrn.org; founded 2011, registered at the Agency for Health Research & Quality [AHRQ], January 2012) is based at the UCLA Dental School, EBD Study Group (A. Barkhordarian, Coordinator). EBD-PBRN consists of seven dental practices in California, one in Florida, one in Tennessee, and one in New York State. Its international collaborative PBRN’s include academic centers in Saudi Arabia, Portugal, The Philippines, and Brazil; the Cochrane Group-Philippines; as well as academic dental research institutes in India (Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences) and Italy (Tyrrhenian Institute of Stomatology). Scholarly exchanges are ensured by means of Fulbright Specialist and other fellowship-sponsored faculty, clinician and student exchanges.
Conclusion:
Taken together, the global nature of the endeavors of EBD-PBRN forge a common intent of CEERAP and translational effectiveness in the practice of evidence-based dentistry. This entails the patient-centered dissemination and translation of the best available evidence, obtained through the systematic, validated and hypothesis-driven process of research synthesis, in specific clinical settings world-wide.