Dental
practitioners are a largely untapped resource for providing advice and brief
counseling to patients who use tobacco. Although the hazards associated with
smoking and smokeless tobacco are well known, the adoption of tobacco cessation
into dental practice has been slow. If dental practitioners provided cessation
assistance routinely and achieved even modest success rates, the public health
impact would be enormous. In recent
years, the number of dental schools that recommend students discuss tobacco
cessation with their patients has increased, yet implementation of tobacco
cessation education in the pre-doctoral curriculum is inconsistent and
non-systematic. Research conducted at Baylor College of
Dentistry to evaluate the effects of integration of tobacco cessation in
pre-doctoral dental education showed a significant impact on factors that have
a positive effect on tobacco intervention and prevention. At present, the
tobacco cessation curriculum at the three dental schools in Texas provide some
tobacco intervention although the curricula are inconsistent, some topics are
not included and the burden of delivery of the material is typically the
responsibility of a single faculty member. The intent of the proposed project
is to use a multi-component intervention to enhance tobacco cessation education
and practice in Texas dental schools.