Leadership in dental public health? Wanted: a catcher in the rye

Changes in the structure of the health services have resulted in a vacuum in leadership in dental public health. The competitive model, introduced in 1993, had several serious effects on the delivery of publicly-funded dental health services. Some Crown Health Enterprises greatly reduced their expenditure by employing fewer public health dentists. This resulted in major disparities in the supervision of school dental services, and in a reduction in health-services research. Problems in publicly-funded dental health services are accumulating, but no leadership to meet these problems seems to be emerging. Because of this failure, it may now be up to the providers to assume the leadership role.