Individual interventions, such as topical fluorides, and community-level interventions, such as community water fluoridation, can also help improve oral health. In addition, teaching people how to care for their teeth and gums can help prevent oral health problems. Keeping your teeth and gums clean can prevent tooth decay and gum disease. Oral health promotion aims to prevent oral health diseases before they occur or to reduce the impact of oral health diseases.
This is done through a variety of community strategies or programs that aim to improve and maintain the oral health of the population. For example, teaching people to clean their teeth properly and to maintain a healthy mouth. Evidence-based research on oral health promotion has important implications for oral health policies and planning efforts. Oral health care should be considered a collective responsibility of all community health workers.
The role of oral health workers, therefore, goes beyond clinical and community responsibilities. Oral health workers should be involved in advocacy, training, communication and networking. Oral health promotion activities include oral health education, additional fluoride absorption, nutritional counseling, and fissure sealant applications. Oral health promotion needs may vary from person to person depending on their oral health status and the presence of any underlying factors, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, pregnancy, menopause, smoking and the patient's socioeconomic background.
The lack of funding, in addition to being an obstacle to practicing evidence-based health promotion, is a potential obstacle to developing evidence-based health promotion. Dentists and dental care professionals (DCPs) promote oral health for different groups of people, with the goal of improving their oral health and overall well-being. Current health behavioral models, which have proven to be effective in health education programs, are based on two-way communication. The Lalonde report (1997) was the first major government report to recognize that the health system was not the most important determinant of health status.
Government investment in health care as a percentage of GDP is an important indicator that shows the importance of health care at the national level. The proper practice of evidence-based health promotion and, by analogy, the promotion of oral health, requires high-quality available evidence, considerations of local values, and the availability of resources. A multilevel framework for modeling oral health promotion would include macroinfluences (population health strategies, economic systems, policy formulation, social stratification, political processes), mesoinfluences (communities, workplaces, institutions, schools) and microinfluences. The use of evidence-based decision-making in health services and planning is considered a viable mechanism for identifying optimal health benefits for the population in question.
Organizational planning within the health system should include the development of skills (including the acquisition of knowledge and leadership skills), the improvement of organizational structures, the allocation of resources, the development of partnerships, and the development of policies. The promotion of oral health should be examined taking into account multidimensional influences (social, cultural, environmental) and their interrelationships with a wide range of outcomes, including mental and physical health, diseases and disorders, risky and protective behaviors and behavioral change, beliefs about health and attitudes and normal development and functioning throughout the life cycle. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), oral health is a key indicator of overall health, well-being and quality of life, encompassing a variety of diseases and conditions including tooth decay, periodontal (gum) disease, tooth loss, oral cancer and other less common oral diseases. .
