title: Advances in dental public health.
abstract: Dental public health has been defined as 'the science and art of preventing oral diseases, promoting oral health and improving the quality of life through the organised efforts of society'. Dental practitioners most often have the oral health of individual patients as their primary focus but the aim of public health is to benefit populations. Early developments in dental public health were concerned largely with demonstrating levels of disease and with treatment services. With greater appreciation of the nature of oral health and disease, and of their determinants has come recognition of the need for wider public health action if the effects of prevention and oral health promotion are to be maximized.
authors.affiliation: Department of Transcultural Oral Health, Eastman Dental Institute, London.
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Holt
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005457:Fluoridation; D009050:Fluorosis, Dental / Q000453:epidemiology; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D009909:Oral Health; D015995:Prevalence; D011636:Public Health Dentistry / Q000639:trends*; D011788:Quality of Life; D014077:Tooth Erosion / Q000453:epidemiology; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology