In a meeting February 24 at the ADA headquarters in Chicago, the ADA, FDI World Dental Federation, and dental associations around the world urged their respective governments and the United Nations (U.N.) 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.
"When we improve the nation's oral health, we help improve their overall health," said William Calnon, DDS, president of the ADA. "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 non-communicable, chronic diseases is prevention and early diagnosis, the organizations noted in a press release. Dentists can play a valuable role in screening dental patients for certain non-communicable diseases and referring them to physicians or other qualified health professionals for evaluation and any necessary treatment.
In 2009, for the first time in history, oral health was addressed through a special session at the 7th World Health Organization Global Conference on Health Promotion in Nairobi, Kenya. Last September, 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 non-communicable disease prevention and control.
The ADA 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, the ADA noted.
