Introduction
Dental Public Health (DPH) is concerned with the oral health of a population rather than individuals and has been defined as the science and art of preventing oral diseases, promoting oral health and improving the quality of life through the organised efforts of society.
Dental Public Health in the UK is a dental specialty overseen by the General Dental Council (GDC) and Dental Public Health Specialists must be registered on the specialist list in Dental Public Health of the GDC. The award of the Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) will require evidence of satisfactory completion of training in all aspects of Dental Public Health which are outlined in this curriculum.
The curriculum takes as its guidance a number of documents including:
- The Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board's (PMETB) Standards for Curricula
- The PMETB's Principles for an Assessment System for Postgraduate Medical Training
- The Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom Public Health Training Curriculum 2007
- Medical leadership competency framework, jointly developed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement,
- Skills for Health Career framework
- Draft guidance from 'A Guide to Postgraduate Dental Specialty Training in the UK 2009' (Gold Guide).