ADA global impact

Feb. 27, 2012
Dental associations urge governments, United Nations to address issue.

CHICAGO, Illinois--In a meeting at the American Dental Association headquarters, the ADA, FDI World Dental Federation, and dental associations around the world urged their respective governments and the United Nations to recognize and address the global impact of oral disease.

The ADA is a member of the FDI, an international organization comprised of approximately 200 national dental associations and specialist groups.

According to ADA President William R. Calnon, D.S, "When we improve the nation's oral health, we help improve their overall health. We urge U.S. health agencies to focus on risk assessment, prevention, disease management, and early intervention to decrease both oral diseases and non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart, respiratory, and diabetes."

The most viable approach in addressing noncommunicable, chronic diseases is prevention and early diagnosis. Signs and symptoms in the mouth may indicate disease elsewhere in the body, thus dentists can play a role in screening dental patients for certain noncommunicable diseases and referring them to physicians or other qualified health professionals for evaluation and any necessary treatment.

According to the FDI, tooth decay affects 90% of the world's population. Oral conditions such as caries (the disease that causes tooth decay), periodontal (gum) disease, dental infections, and other oral conditions share common risk factors (unhealthy diet, alcohol and tobacco use) with four chronic diseases recognized by the U.N. as noncommunicable diseases: cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory, and diabetes.

Some oral conditions and infections can increase the risk for all four of these noncommunicable diseases. According to the World Health Organization, 36.1 million people worldwide died from conditions such as heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancers, and diabetes in 2008.

ADA dentists to tweet tooth tips

In 2009, for the first time in history, oral health was addressed through a special session at the Seventh World Health Organization Global Conference on Health Promotion in Nairobi, Kenya.

In September 2011, at a U.N. meeting in New York, 193 U.N. member states--including the U.S.--signed a declaration containing a series of commitments on noncommunicable disease prevention and control.

The American Dental Association and national dental associations around the world believe the next step in combating oral disease is for their respective governments to honor the commitments their governments made in signing the September 2011 declaration by adding oral disease to the U.N. political agenda and for each government to include oral disease among its national health indicators by 2013.

For more information about the ADA, visit the association's Web site at www.ada.org.

To comment on this topic, go to community.pennwelldentalgroup.com/.