Dental public health principles and practices

Dentistry and Public Health

There seems to be a lot more to prevent teeth decay than what is known. Even with oral hygiene and dentistry, tooth decay is still the most common phenomena linked to obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

This is where public health comes in and is linked to dentistry. Public Health is composed of at least 3 factors:

The first is germs where a dentist needs to be aware of the prevalence of germs in his own instruments and environment and the necessity of preventing and controlling these germs.

The second concern is fluoridation of water. Much tap water is not fluourized and commercial mouthwashes too may have ingredients that may cause oral cancer. The public health dentist is aware of these

Finally, dental sealant's applied to biting edge of teeth is another way that dentists can prevent oral decay

Body

Oral health predates dentistry since everyone has at least one oral disease and many of these are unknown and may exist even before the patient reaches the dentist chair. Some of these are carried through the dentist office, like germs transmitted in dentist's instruments, or non-fluoridized water, commercial mouthwash, or lack of sealants on teeth.

The following three are key features of public health that the dentist can prevent:

1. Germs

Hygiene in all aspects of the dental work is excruciatingly important. Germs can get passed around through deficient dental hygiene too -- through the work that that dentist does, through what he touches, through patients transmitting their germs to another simply because dentist fails to take optimum preventions. One of the instances may be patient drinking the same water that another drinks, both touching the side of basin whilst so doing. Another may be the dentist insufficiently cleaning his instruments, or not changing gloves between uses. Each and everything must be scrupulously scrubbed between patients. This aspect of dental hygiene is insufficiently known. I think that we should be more aware of it.

2. Fluidized water

More than 100 million Americans live in communities where there is no fluorized water. This too results in teeth decay. Dentists who work on policies of Public Health urge fluroidizaiton of this water:

"For improvement of oral health for entire communities, fluoridation is the most cost-effective preventive measure at our disposal. Fluoridation costs only about 70 cents per capita, and the measure prevents a tremendous amount of disease," (Centers for Disease)

Some commercial mouthwashes may also provide some ingredient that has been associated -- still unreliably, but there nonetheless with oral cancer (Vecchia, Carlo La 2009). This association needs to be further investigated too and policies created against use and proliferation of these mouthwashes.

3. Dental sealant

Cavities occur from acid demineralization of teeth where more than 95% of chewed food remains on teeth. 80% of the cavities develop within pits and fissures where brushing cannot reach. One simple way of preventing this is by painting dental sealant over teeth that prevent the food from falling into these grooves. This can have about the same impact as fluroidization and prevent at least 80% of cavities form occurring (Supertoothndk.org.). Dental sealants are a very simple measure to prevent teeth decay. Yet according to Dr. Allukian at least 85% of 14-year-olds have not had this type of treatment (Weintraub, 2001)).