[Community laboratories as tools of scientific research on health society in Venezuela]

The School of Dentistry of Zulia University, Maracaibo, Venezuela, set up "community laboratories" to investigate alternative solutions to Venezuelan oral health problems. These academic-administrative units were used to make trial of different arrangements for the provision of dental care in different community situations. The purposes of the community laboratories were to design, develop, and compare comprehensive dental care systems, delegate functions to auxiliary personnel selected in the communities themselves, use simplified equipment, design techniques for reducing costs while maintaining quality, generate a methodology for community motivation, apply preventive techniques on a mass scale, offer the experience so acquired to the public services and to the profession at large, and supply information on the community essential for the design of curricula. The result has been highly encouraging because of the degree of community participation obtained and the salutary effect on student training and attitudes.