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John P Brown BDS, MS, PhD
Professor
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Dental School
San Antonio, TX
Biographical Sketch
John P. Brown, Professor in the Department of Community Dentistry, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, was Chairman of the department from 1984-2006. He and his colleagues progressively developed and implemented a curriculum in clinical preventive dentistry which was both scientific evidence based and disease risk based. Grounded in the biological and behavioral sciences and following curricular guidelines in prevention established for all the health professions, it is featured in the textbook Prevention and Clinical Oral Health Care. Cappelli DP, Mobley CC. 2008, Elsevier, St. Louis. Dr. Brown also fostered the department’s accredited Residency in Dental Public Health, and was its director from 1994-2005.
He is currently a co-investigator in a multicenter clinical trial of xylitol as a dental caries preventive agent in adults (2006-11, X-ACT, NIH). He was a site investigator for the International Collaborative Study of Childhood Caries (2001-02, NIH) and also in San Antonio for the Second International Collaborative Study of Oral Health Outcomes (1989-1993, ICS II, WHO CDC AHCPR). This provided the only probability based overview of oral health and dental treatment outcomes in San Antonio to date, comparing hispanic and non-hispanic populations. With Associate Professor Jane Steffensen he organized oral health policy forums including the first Texas Oral Health Summit, at which an oral health plan they led for the State was released (2004, HRSA), and a National Workshop on Oral Health of Mothers and Children (1989, MCHB-HRSA). They studied access to and outcomes of Medicaid dental care in Texas (1997-99, TDH). He reported the cost efficiency of community water fluoridation (1997-99, TDH), and has authored and co-authored over sixty papers in oral epidemiology, preventive dentistry, oral health and dental services, and cariology.
From 1984-2000 Associate Professor Elaine Neenan, colleagues, and Dr. Brown promoted the health policy and science education necessary to achieve community water fluoridation in San Antonio; a landmark community preventive measure.
Dr. Brown has served the International Association for Dental Research as President of the Cariology Group 1996-97, and the American Public Health Association – Oral Health Section, which conferred on him the John W. Knutson Distinguished Service Award in Dental Public Health in 2006.
He is a graduate of the University of Queensland (BDS, PhD) and the University of Rochester NY (MS and Pediatric Dentistry Residency), and is Board Certified in Dental Public Health. Dr. Brown is an adjunct faculty member of the University of Texas School of Public Health, and a member of the Graduate Faculty of the School of Biomedical Sciences at UTHSCSA.