Health promotion: Views of practice principals

Dental teams could contribute to meeting Government targets for reducing coronary heart disease and cancer.Dentists' views on involvement in general health promotion were influenced by whether they saw the purpose of dentistry as achieving health or treating disease. Those with more of a health focus were already involved and wanted to do more.Dental teams' involvement in general health promotion is lower than might be expected given reported views on its relevance to dentistry.Although barriers to involvement included time and financial factors, current workload and lack of personal skills, fewer dentists felt that these were barriers for PCDs.