This coming 2020, just a few more days to go, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will launch a program called Healthy People 2020. This health program has goals basically to promote health and prevent diseases. This initiative has been in practice for many years now and started in 1979 which was originally conceptualized by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW). Let us learn more about Healthy People 2020: Oral Health Objectives and its primary goals for the betterment of our dental and overall health. For more information, you can read an article about oral health at www.thdentalryde.com.au/how-to-get-healthy-gums.
Healthy People 2020: Health program since 2000
From its predecessors, Healthy People (1979), Healthy People 2000 (1990) and Healthy People 2010 (2000), Healthy People 2020: Oral Health Objectives, first presented in 2010 has goals to strengthen what the first programs set in order to improve our quality of lives. While the 2000 initiative aims to reduce health disparities and the 2010 program wanted to eliminate these disparities, the Healthy People 2020 now aims to expand, update, and strengthen the goals that the others have set.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Healthy People 2020 aims to reach four overarching goals:
- Attain high-quality, longer lives free of preventable disease, disability, injury, and premature death.
- Achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups.
- Create social and physical environments that promote good health for all.
- Promote quality of life, healthy development, and healthy behaviors across all life stages.”
Let us now find out what this health program has in store for the promotion of oral health.
How can Healthy People 2020 Oral Health Objectives help us?
The main goal for oral health of this decade’s initiative is for the prevention and control of any oral and craniofacial disease, condition, or injury, as well as improvement in accessing preventive services and dental care.
There are many objectives passed by the HHS to formulate and uphold the main goal of the initiative, and most of them speak about directly to dental health and quite a number of these objectives tackle and reflect on the connection between oral disease and other chronic illnesses such as diabetes and cancer. To help implement these oral health objectives, the CDC works in partnership with the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), Indian Health Service (IHS), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to make sure that all agencies are focused in achieving one specific goal.
Why is oral health important?
As we have mentioned, time and again, nutrition starts in the mouth. The food we eat which contains all the essential nutrients our body needs is introduced to the mouth. It is the gateway to our health. excellent oral health can perk up a person’s ability to speak, smile, smell, taste, touch, chew, swallow, and show facial expressions to let somebody see their true feelings and emotions. Encountering a problem that may have an effect on the health and appearance of the mouth would greatly affect the sensation and use of the mouth, which in turn will sabotage our overall health. It is then imperative that health professionals and people alike start to think of our oral and dental health as part of our overall general and medical health.
