Oral health and the role of HHS

Despite previous calls for greater attention to dental health as an integral part of people's overall health and the galvanizing case of a boy's death due to an untreated tooth infection in 2007, oral health remains an aspect of America's health-care system that needs greater attention. A new report by the Institute of Medicine provides a blueprint for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to raise the profile of oral health in the work of its agencies and to promote greater awareness among health-care providers outside of dentistry as well as the general public. The report’s recommendations are designed to enhance HHS's recently debuted Oral Health Initiative, a cross-agency national plan for improving oral health.

The IOM’s call for priority attention within HHS to oral health comes at a time when signs indicate a waning of momentum. These signals include the downgrading of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Oral Health into a branch of another division and failure of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health to list oral health among the “important topics that affect the health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

The report, “Advancing Oral Health in America: The Role of HHS,” is one of two on oral health to be released by IOM this year. A second report will focus on improving Americans’ access to oral health services.

Click here to read the report brief.