Patterns of community-based prevention programs.

Prevention of dental caries is most effectively and efficiently achieved by community-based methods, whether in economically developed or developing countries. The role of the private practitioner is a dual one: to support the establishment of appropriate caries-preventive programs such as water fluoridation, salt fluoridation, supervised ingestion of fluoride tablets, and supervised programs of mouthrinsing with fluoride solutions and with such programs in place, to provide personal preventive care to that relatively small number of caries-susceptible people who will still need individual attention. The development of community-based programs is especially critical in those developing countries where the population is growing rapidly and caries is becoming more prevalent, for with their limited resources the only hope of controlling caries is with cost-effective community programs. Control of periodontal disease requires community education, but to be successful it will also require preventive care from practitioners. Even in the economically-developed countries there is a need for greater awareness of periodontal disease among both practitioners and the public. In many of these countries, now that caries is becoming better controlled, the time is ripe for considerably more prevention and treatment of periodontal disease. Its control, in the developing countries, poses special problems, and will have to depend heavily on public education for a considerable time yet. Both community-based programs and private practitioners have important roles to play in the prevention of the most prevalent oral diseases, but these roles need to be carefully defined to avoid wasteful duplication if maximum benefit is to be obtained.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)