Dentistry's public-private interface: a federal perspective

Each dental public health worker is confronted with a wide variety of organizations with which a professional relation can be developed. Decisions about which relations should receive priority, and the kind of relations that may be expected, are easier to define if each possible organizational interface is placed in one of three categories: (1) professional associations; (2) the employing bureaucracy and its sister agencies; and (3) the organizations performing the same dental public health functions as the worker, but within different geographic parameters. A three-dimensional model is developed, using as an example the organizational interfaces of the chief dental officer, US Public Health Service; with national level associations, the federal government; and with dental public health workers at the international and state levels of government. Current issues of importance to the American Association of Public Health Dentistry are identified according to the principal relations needed with other national associations, the federal government, and international and state governments.