Clinical effectiveness and primary dental care. 2. The influence of health economics.

The first paper gave an overview of the issues concerning clinical effectiveness and primary dental care. However, the rise of evidence-based health care has the potential to increase as well as control costs. With the demands on health care ever increasing, the costs of interventions as well as their benefits must be assessed concurrently. This is the area covered by the science of health economics, which will play an increasing role throughout all health services as an aid to prioritising the deployment of resources. It is inevitable, therefore, that the theories and methods of health economics will affect the delivery of primary dental care in the future.