Oral Health

The EUPHA Oral health section aims to contribute to the prevention of oral diseases in the context of better general health, thereby addressing health inequalities. Specific objectives include contributing to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal on universal health coverage, and to build on the inter-disciplinary partnership between the European Association of Dental Public Health (EADPH).

EUPHA Sections bring together researchers, policymakers and practitioners working in the same field for knowledge sharing and capacity building.

The objectives are:

• To contribute to the achievement of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) including universal health coverage
• To build on the partnership between EADPH and EUPHA and to adopt inter-disciplinary collaborations with different sections of EUPHA -putting oral health on everybody’s agenda.
• To disseminate evidence-based knowledge  and give guidance to public health professionals and policy makers to support implementation, monitoring and evaluation of strategies and interventions
• To adopt inter-professional collaboration in terms of policy, education and practice and contribute to capacity building of the future public health workforce
• To strengthen partnership with external stakeholders  including WHO, WFPHA, local public health associations, the EU Commission, FDI (World Dental Federation)
• To organise inter-disciplinary workshops

In recognition that NCDs share common risk factors with oral health, Dr Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, the past President of EUPHA was invited as a keynote speaker to the EADPH conference in Palma De Mallorca (2018) to improve collaboration between EADPH and EUPHA. EADPH is already a partner organisation in EUPHA. Members of the EADPH have attended EUPHA meetings in the past.

The mouth cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the body; oral health is being increasingly linked with other general health and systemic diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, respiratory diseases and cancers. One example of potential multidisciplinary work is the impact of sugars on oral and general health. Evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analysis have demonstrated associations between sugars consumption and a myriad of chronic diseases and conditions including dental caries, weight gain and obesity, type II diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases. The WHO’s Global Action Plan on NCDS 2013-2020 clearly recommends the reduction in consumption of free sugars in food and drinks for better oral and general health outcomes.

A second example is the benefits of tobacco control on both the general and oral health. General health outcomes include reduced incidence of ischaemic heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Tobacco control can result in improved oral health outcomes reducing the prevalence of periodontal diseases and head and neck cancer. It was surprising to note that the monitoring report on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control showed that only 52 countries stated their dentists were involved in tobacco control in some form. It is recommended that health care workers including dental teams should be offering tobacco advice routinely to their patients.

Furthermore, the dental health workforce is a powerful ally within the public health network. The dental workforce has the advantage of delivering evidenced-based health advice to children, adolescents and adults on a regular basis and therefore can contribute to tackling NCDs and health inequalities.

Considering that tooth decay is one of the most prevalent conditions worldwide, prevention can only be achieved with collaboration with public health. Therefore, we would like to raise the importance of oral health in the context of general health.