L'enseignement de la santé publique en odontologie : les enjeux d'un diplôme d'études spécialisées (DES)

Public health education brings together various disciplines in an intelligent way, oriented towards a population-based approach and an awareness of the “non-technical life” of a dental office and dental surgery in general. Thus, prevention, health economics, epidemiology, ethics, legal dentistry, ergonomics, hygiene and asepsis are taught. As a young discipline, whose university sub-section was born in 1986, public health education appears to be of paramount importance for future dentists to understand, grasp and adapt to changes in the profession. Increasingly, there is a need for specialists in oral public health and social odontology to preserve the oral health of the population in a fair and structured professional setting. These are all the challenges of creating a DES (diplôme d'études spécialisées) to specify the missions of specialists in oral public health and social odontology, which will be to structure oral health observatories, to bring methodological expertise in research, to conduct treatment and analysis of reliable data, to develop territorial health strategies, to consolidate public health education and awareness of ethical issues, and to promote social odontology. In so doing, this specialty brings the discipline into adulthood.