Although there has been more than 100 years since Miller first postulated about the caries etiopathogenesis, this disease remains the most prevalent noncontagious infectious disease in humans. It is clear that the current approaches to decrease the prevalence of caries in human populations, including water fluoridation and school-based programs, are not enough to protect everyone. The NIH Consensus Development Program released a statement in 2001 entitled “Diagnosis and Management of Dental Caries Throughout Life” (NIH Consensus Statement Online 2001 March 26–28; 18(1): 1–24) and listed six major clinical caries research directions:

• The “Epidemiology of Primary and Secondary Caries” needs to be systematically studied with population cohort studies that collect information on natural history, treatment, and outcomes across the age spectrum
• Research into “Diagnostic Methods”, including established and new devices and techniques, is needed. Development of standardized methods of calibrating examiners is needed
• “Clinical Trials” of established and new treatment methods are needed. These should conform to contemporary standards of design, implementation, analysis, and reporting. They should include trials of efficacy
• Systematic research on caries “Risk Assessment” is needed using population-based cohort techniques
• Studies of “Clinical Practice” including effectiveness, quality of care, outcomes, health-related quality of life, and appropriateness of care are needed
• “Genetic” studies are necessary to identify genes and genetic markers of diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic value

We invite the authors to submit papers that are focused on aspects of the six topics listed above. The aim of this special issue is to describe the current effort to address caries at the population level, since it remains highly prevalent everywhere in the world. This special issue will include opinion papers, review articles, and original research addressing any of the six topics listed above.

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijd/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: