Scientific, public health, and other advances have greatly improved the oral health of the people in recent decades. Nonetheless, significant oral health problems remain common and are concentrated in populations with limited access to dental services. In coming decades, oral health will be affected by further scientific and technological progress, although the timing of specific breakthroughs and their rate of diffusion into practice are hard to predict. Likewise, the degree to which access to oral health services will improve for high-risk or underserved populations is difficult to predict in the midst of a fractious debate over health care reform.

   Dental educators have an important role to play in building the scientific, epidemiological, and organizational knowledge base for improved oral health and oral health services. Measuring and evaluating progress in oral health, however, requires more consistent and regular information on oral health status and more research on the outcomes of established and new oral health interventions. Making full use of growing knowledge will, in turn, require dental educators to revise how and what the students are taught and to adjust the ways in which patient care is provided within the dental school. The next three chapters pursue these points.