title: Historical perspective on U.S. military dental classification.
abstract: The objective of this article is to describe from a historical perspective the use of dental epidemiology and surveillance in the three U.S. military Dental Corps. The time described starts in 1882 and includes very recent events. The year 1981 was a milestone because it marks the author's personal involvement in this area of research, and because at that time the three U.S. Dental Corps were being pressured from the highest level to make dental care more militarily relevant. I provide (1) a basic description of the rationale for the classification-driven system and (2) additional comments on dental epidemiology methods from a historical perspective. I observed that the intent in 1981 was to provide a population-based index for Congress and Department of Defense, but today there appears to be more interest in the accuracy of predicting risk for dental emergencies in individual service members. The current dental classification may not be capable of doing both.
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: King
mesh_terms: D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008885:Military Dentistry / Q000266:history*; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000266:history* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009909:Oral Health; D014076:Tooth Diseases / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014857:Warfare