Vol. 3 • Issue 1 Time to Develop Social Dentistry 109 © International & American Associations for Dental Research 2017 INVITED COMMENTARY Knowledge Transfer Statement: We are calling researchers, educators, and dental professionals to be at the forefront of actions addressing social determinants of health. We indeed argue that 1) it is the dentists’ and other oral health care professionals’ role to tackle social determinants of health and 2) as researchers and educators, we need to help clinicians in this endeavor and lead the development of a “social dentistry” movement. Keywords: social determinants of health, social justice, social medicine, professional competence, dental educa- tion, interdisciplinary studies H ow long will we tolerate the strik- ing social gradient of health that affects our rich societies? Or have we already given up and accepted the unacceptable? Have we accepted that the less affluent of our fellow citizens are at higher risk of feeling unhealthy, being sick, and dying early? Have we accepted that being poor often means experi- encing dental caries in early childhood, suffering from recurrent toothaches or impaired smiles, and having teeth pre- maturely extracted? There is an exten- sive body of literature on the importance of addressing the social determinants of oral health and modifiable common risk factors. Watt (2007), in particular, called for a shift from the “biomedical/ behavioural downstream” approaches to approaches that are “upstream.” Unfortunately, it seems that many den- tists still feel powerless to address the social determinants of health: “it is not our job.” In this commentary, we argue that 1) it is the dentists’ and other oral health professionals’ job to tackle social determinants of health and 2) as researchers and educators, we need to help clinicians in this endeavor and lead the development of “social dentistry.” The social determinants of health are the “conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age” (World Health Organization 2017). They refer to our income, working conditions, literacy, and access to care; they also relate to the ways that society treats us, depending on our gender, social status, ethnic origin, or religious beliefs. Because these factors are related to “social structures,” we expect governmental bodies to address them. It is indeed public institutions’ duty, with the support of dental public health (Watt 2007), to develop various upstream actions, such as eliminating absolute poverty, reducing material inequalities, and combating discriminations. Does it mean that clinicians have no role to play in this process? On the contrary, they are well positioned to address the social determinants of health. This is why several voices in the United States have encouraged the development of “social medicine” (Westerhaus et al. 2015; Sklar 2017): doctors should become “structurally competent” to develop mid- and upstream actions, in addition to producing individual- level patient care. This approach is not new: it revives an old tradition that Rudolf Virchow, a German physician and politician of the 19th century, made famous by stating that health professionals were the natural advocates of the poor and social problems largely within their jurisdiction (Lee 1999). In Canada and the United Kingdom as well, voices have called on health professionals and researchers to tackle health inequalities through action on the social determinants of health. Allen et al. (2013) recommended training clinicians to identify the structural forces that shape their patients’ health, to acquire knowledge about their communities, and to develop partnerships within and beyond the health sector. This would allow them, in addition to providing clinical individual care, to refer patients to a range of services addressing the causes of illness. In the same way, clinicians should advocate for change in local and national policies. Implementing such approaches implies important changes in academic curricula. As Westerhaus et al. (2015) stated, “medical education, in its noble drive to educate the young clinician in the intricacies of human anatomy or the wonder of the biochemical processes that sustain life, has failed to link the interplay of important biological processes with the social space their hosts inhabit.” Professional schools thus JCT XX X 10.1177/2380084417738001JDR Clinical & Translational ResearchTime to Develop Social Dentistry research-article 2017 DOI: 10.1177/2380084417738001. 1 Oral Health and Society Division, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; 2 School of Public Health, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada; 3 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Dental Faculty, Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France. Corresponding author: C. Bedos, Oral Health and Society Division, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University, 2001, McGill College Avenue, Montreal, QC H3A 1G1, Canada. Email: christophe.bedos@mcgill.ca Time to Develop Social Dentistry C. Bedos 1,2 , N. Apelian 1 , and J.N. Vergnes 1,3