Dental Problems in an Epidemiologic Perspective

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Abstract
The evolution of a public health dentistry is believed inhibited in attaining its potential by inadequate resources in official health agencies for epidemiologic diagnosis and guidance and evaluation of programs that come from these methods. The need is as great as for other major activities in state and local health departments. The record of research by dental epidemiologists speaks for itself. The deficiency is that there are too few in the field. The remedy to both situations presumably rests with dental education. It is desirable that undergraduate instructions in preventive dentistry be built around a framework of epidemiology, as is the trend in medical education. In the course of its development dental epidemiology placed initial emphasis on problems primarily dental. The future would indicate an eventual incorporation of those interests into the general patterns of medical and epidemiologic effort toward the health and welfare of populations.