Dental health education: what lessons have we ignored?

Dental health education is an important part of our professional activities given we provide day-to-day treatment of caries and periodontal disease which can mostly be controlled by our patients, provided they implement relatively simple changes in their daily oral health habits. However, efforts in the field of both patient and public education are not supported by research. This is partly due to a failure to include an evaluation of these activities; enthusiasm often takes precedence over scientific assessment.