Unlike medical care, which most people use only when they are sick, good dental care is always needed because good oral health is essential to good overall health. Many people, including minorities, the homeless and the elderly do not visit the dentist as often as they should. As the nation's premier nonprofit organization dedicated to improving oral health, Oral Health America has initiated a ten-year Campaign for Oral Health Parity to make oral health a priority for everyone and increase access to care for the 22.5 million Americans who want but cannot obtain oral healthcare. This paper lays out some of the reasons Oral Health America has taken on this challenge and report. Oral health is more than clean, white teeth, filled cavities and healthy gums.
Oral health means being free of disease.
In a very real sense, the condition of the mouth mirrors the condition of the body. But good oral health also has an undeniable impact on well-being, because the way your mouth feels and looks affects how you eat and speak, how you smile, how you interact with other people, whether you sleep comfortably through the night, even whether you can make it through a day at work or school without being bothered by pain in the mouth. Missing and unfilled teeth mean pain, loss of sleep, poor performance, low self-esteem, and difficulty in getting and keeping a job. No single study answers these questions. But a number of very different indicators suggest that the number of people who get dental care has increased in every age group, for both sexes, at all income and educational levels and across the major racial and ethnic groups.