What is a Public Health Dentist and what do they do?
Dentists with special training in community and public health are called public health dentists. Their main role is the diagnosis, prevention and control of oral diseases. In other words, they must decide what the oral disease is, and figure out how to prevent it from starting, and also how to stop it from spreading.)
They are concerned about groups of people, rather that just one person at a time. Most public health dentists work in the official public health system. This means they may work in local public health units or for one of a number of government agencies.
Public health dentistry helps people have healthy mouths (and bodies) by organised community efforts. There are many ways to do this, such as:
Disease surveillance (counting how often an oral health problem is found in a certain group of people such as school children or seniors)- Research
- Health promotion (helping people to have more control over their own health, and to have better health)
- Public education
- Group dental care programs (for those groups of people more likely to get dental disease)
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