Oral health component of child health services research.

The June 11 JAMA article outlines a rationale for developing a focus on child health services research and offers several strategies for facilitating the process. Developing a child health research agenda is essential to advancing dental care and professional education and, thus, is relevant to educators as well as researchers and policy makers. Oral health considerations are not likely to have high visibility or priority within that agenda unless dental health services researchers and dental schools become involved. An obvious question that is bound to be raised is "does it make sense to attempt to direct some portion of the already scarce resources available for dental health services research to children's issues?" Many individuals in leadership positions will probably think not; however, with an appropriate strategy, a small number of organized individuals and institutions can make a significant difference. Given the nature of dental diseases and the historical values of the profession, what better place to start?