RESEARCH Open Access

The role of tobacco use o ar Tobacco use is a modifiable risk behaviour in oral disease development. Dental professionals are able to reduce the developed in both dental and dental hygiene programs [2]. Within undergraduate dental education for tobacco use Ojima et al. Tobacco Induced Diseases 2013, 11:13 http://www.tobaccoinduceddiseases.com/content/11/1/132Section of Oral Public Health, Fukuoka Dental College, Fukuoka 814-0193, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleoral and overall disease burden related to tobacco by counselling their patients. To date, however, tobacco inter-vention practices by community dental professionals have been limited, and dental professionals may have not fully embraced opportunities for tobacco use interventions [1], interventions, the most important facilitator is evidence of the effects of tobacco use on oral health [3], while screen-ing guides an important visual tool of the effects of to-bacco use on oral health, particularly mucosal lesions [4]. These activities have been mainly conducted in the United States, where dental professionals may have been aware of the detrimental effects of smokeless tobacco in the oral cavity in their daily practice [5]. However, they are now expanding globally based on evidence of the detrimental * Correspondence: haniokat@college.fdcnet.ac.jpBackground: To examine facilitators of dental smoking intervention practices in Japan, where smokeless tobacco is rarely used, we evaluated the characteristics of dental care for smokers. Methods: Community dentists volunteered to record the treated disease or encounter with patients that was principally responsible for their dental care on the survey day. Patients were classified into groups receivin