Introduction to Dental Public Health

1. Introduction to Dental Public Health

2. Public Health Health "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity"

3. Public Health • WHO expert Committee on Public Health Administration adapting Winslow's earlier definition has defined it as “The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of communicable infections, the education of individual in personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing services for early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease and the development of social machinery to ensure for every individual a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health, so organising these benefits as to enable every citizen to realize his/her birth right to health and longevity''.

4. Dental public health “Dental public health is the science and art of preventing and controlling dental diseases and promoting dental health through organized community efforts. It is that form of dental practice which serves the community as a patient rather than the individual. It is concerned with the dental education of the public with applied dental research and with the administrations of group dental care programs as well as the prevention and control of dental diseases on a community basis” -American Association of Public Health Dentistry, Dental Health Section of the American Public Health Association and ADA

5. Tools of dental public health • Epidemiology • Biostatistics • Social sciences • Principles of administration • Preventive dentistry

6. Epidemiology • To define magnitude and occurrence of disease conditions in man • To identify etiological factors responsible • To provide data necessary for planning, implementation and evaluation of programmes aimed at preventing, controlling and treating diseases

7. Biostatistics • To define normalcy • To test whether difference between two populations • To study the correlation or association • To evaluate the efficacy of health care, public health programmes

8. Social sciences • Includes sociology, cultural anthropology and psychology • Economics and sometimes history as well

9. Principles of administration • Organisation- deals with the structure of an agency and the way people are arranged into working groups within it • Management- is concerned with the handling of personnel and operations in such a way that the work of the agency gets done

10. Preventive dentistry

11. Characteristic public health techniques • Use of the health center • Case finding • Use of community health council

12. Use of the health center

13. Case finding

14. Community health council

15. Functions of public health dentist • Program administration • Preventive, diagnostic and corrective services • Program promotion and consultative services • Public health training and teaching • Dental health education and information • Research and study projects

16. Dental public health and private practitioner

17. Personal and community health care • Similarities

18. Personal and community health care • Differences

20. Achievements of dental public health • Conducting epidemiologic studies that established the basis of community water fluoridation • Clinical trials to demonstrate the effectiveness of fluoridation and other uses of fluorides • Implementation of caries control programmes that have been fundamental to the decline in the caries among children

21. Epidemiology of periodontal disease, oral cancer and other public health problems • Concept of providing regular dental care in a logical way for large population groups • Efficient use of dental auxiliaries

22. Procedural steps in dental public health • Survey • Analysis • Programme planning • Programme operation • Financing • Programme appraisal

23. Survey

24. Analysis

25. Programme planning

26. Programme operation

27. Financing

28. Programme appraisal

29. Summary