Be proud of your mouth - World Oral Health Day

World Oral Health Day is an opportunity to promote the importance of good oral health, but we need to do much more.

Monday 20 March is World Oral Health Day – an opportunity to grab the spotlight and shine a light on oral health globally. The day is championed by the World Dental Federation and the theme ‘Be proud of your mouth’ will be echoed by thousands of oral health professionals around the world. The focus is on encouraging people to strive for a healthy mouth for a lifetime of smiles.

I’m going to take a slightly different approach this year, because whilst days like this have value in promoting strong oral health messages, invariably they fall short on the sort of action that is actually required to reduce the burden of oral disease.

I have previously written about the problems that many people face accessing dental care in Australia and the dire lack of funding for public dental services. As a consequence, poor oral health is now one of the strongest indicators of disadvantage in Australia. Encouraging vulnerable people to be proud of their mouths – when they carry a disproportionate burden of disease, doesn’t seem fair. Instead, we should be encouraging our governments to ensure that they take the necessary steps to enable people to be proud of their mouths.

Just this week we have seen the announcement that the Australian government plans to spend more than $368 billion over the next 30 years to purchase up to 13 submarines to secure our defence. For some context, the Australian government spends $1.3 billion each year on dental services, and nearly 60% of that is for private health insurance rebates. Only $0.5 billion goes to funding public dental care through the Child Dental Benefits Schedule and adult public dental services.

For the cost of one submarine, the government could double their investment in public dental care over the next 10 years and make a substantial difference to the oral health of vulnerable Australians, allowing many more people to be proud of their mouths.

So, this World Oral Health Day, let’s celebrate the important work that the dental profession does to improve oral health across the community. It’s vitally important that we promote the importance of good oral health and highlight how important that is to overall health and wellbeing. Encouraging people to value and take care of their oral health will help to reduce the burden of oral disease. But encouraging governments to take appropriate action is critical to ensuring that everyone can be proud of their mouth.

Last week: If you missed the last few weeks, you can go back and read about Sustainability in dentistry, Artificial Intelligence in dentistry and Suicidal ideation in Australian dental practitioners.