Dental public health in California: a view of the future

This article has described two recent successful initiatives that have utilized the unique knowledge and skills of dental public health specialists--the enactment of California's new fluoridation law and the first oral health needs assessment of California children--as examples of the types of activities in which practitioners of this specialty of dentistry are engaged on a day-to-day basis. It has also underscored how dental public health can be considered not only a specialty of dentistry, but also a specialty of the broader field of public health, as a result of its mission to assure, promote and protect the oral health of communities. We believe that assuring the oral health of Californians and the nation is far too large an undertaking for any one group or organization. The individual orientation of dental clinicians and the community orientation of dental public health practitioners will both be needed, as will be the collaboration of many other individuals and organizations, if we are to look forward to the 21st century as one in which barriers to oral health are overcome, oral diseases become distant memories, and Americans can look forward to a lifetime of oral health.