Essential dental public health

  • B. Daly,
  • R. Watt,
  • P. Batchelor &
  • E. Treasure
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 price: £24.95, pp372 ISBN 0192629743 | ISBN: 0-192-62974-3

This booked is aimed primarily at dental undergraduates based in the UK. In recognition that dental public health is a recognized core subject in most undergraduate dental curricula, this book aims to provide the 'busy dental undergraduate' with information on the key elements of dental public health which will be covered in their undergraduate course. First impressions are that the layout of the book, with many diagrams and boxes containing key points, makes it interesting and easy to read. At the beginning of each chapter there is a list of learning objectives that will be covered within the chapter. This is particularly helpful, since the main motivation of most undergraduates using the book will be 'what am I expected to know and understand in this area?'

Whilst dental public health can be viewed as a mainly postgraduate subject, the challenge in providing a textbook for undergraduates in this subject, is to make the subject meaningful and useful for a group, the majority of whom will spend their working lives as primary dental care practitioners. The authors see dental public health as a way of developing the students' analytical skills, with an end product of a practitioner who has a wider ethical perspective on his role in providing care within a community and a questioning approach to the delivery of care. This influences the book in that there are many discussion points presented within the book that are designed to stimulate debate and discussion. However, several of these questions are very broad, often imponderable questions, which would be difficult for the average undergraduate to consider without the stimulation and help of fellow students or a teacher. Although the book does not contain any answers to these discussion points, key issues raised are to be posted on the Oxford University Press website. It does however mean that the book is not a stand-alone text for undergraduates who do not have access to the internet. It may be that the discussion points are also intended as material for use in small group teaching of undergraduates in the dental school, which would be a good way getting the most benefit from the book.

Several of the authors are from London dental schools and there is a resultant significant emphasis on a whole-population approach to public health. Whilst much can be said in support of this approach, the book does not provide a very balanced view, and there is the potential that readers will feel that the role of dental practitioners is of little significance in terms of addressing dental public health needs, which is paradoxical since the majority of readers will, in all probability, end up as primary dental care practitioners.