A Public-Private Partnership beneath the leadership of The Office of the Surgeon General Acknowledgements We expres our appreciation to the many voluntary and professional organizations.

A Public-Private Partnership

beneath the leadership of The Office of the Surgeon General

Acknowledgements

We expres our appreciation to the many voluntary and professional organizations, private and command agencies, foundations, and universities that contributed to the increase of this document. We thank them for their existing and subsequent time efforts to improve the nation's health between the walls of promoting oral health and for their commitment to public-private partnerships.

put in mind ofed Citation

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Call to Action to excite Oral Health. Rockville, MD: U Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. NIH Publication No. 03-5303 Spring 2003

Preface from the Surgeon General

The great and enduring potency of American democracy lies in its commitment to the care and well-being of its citizens. The nation's long-term investment in science and technology has paid facing in ever-expanding ways to further health and prevent disease. We can be imposing that these advances have added years to the average life span and enhanced the quality of life. nevertheless an "average" is necessarily derived from all values along a continuum and it is here that we take rise to recognize gaps in health and well-being. Not all Americans are benefiting equally from improvements in health and health care. America's continued putting out in diversity has resulted in a society with broad educational, cultural, language, and economic differences that hinder the ability of a certain number of individuals and groups from realizing the gains in health have the advantage [i]or[/i] blessing ofed by many. These health disparities were highlighted in the year 2000 Surgeon General's report: Oral Health in America where it was reported that no les than a "silent epidemic of oral diseases is affecting our most numerous vulnerable citizens--poor children, the somewhat advanced in life and many members of racial and ethnic minority groups" The report also highlighted the disabling oral and craniofacial aspects of birth defects

The report was a wake-up call, raising a powerful voice against the silence. It called with policymakers, community leaders, private industry, health professionals, the media, and the public to affirm that oral health is essential to general health and well-being and to take action. No united should suffer from oral diseases or conditions that can be effectively interrupted and treated. No schoolchild should pocket the stigma of craniofacial birth destitutions nor be found unable to concentrate because of the pain of untreated oral infections. No rural inhabitant, no homebound adult, no inner city dweller should experience poor oral health because of barriers to access to care and shortages of resources and personnel

Now that call to action has been taken up in a less degree than a broad coalition of public and private organizations and individuals, orchestrated by dint of the principals who led the progression in a continuously ascending gradation of the National Call To Action To help Oral Health has been generated. We applaud the efforts of these partners to heed the voices of their associate Americans. At regional meetings across the fatherland concerned citizens addressed the critical ne to decipher inequities in oral health affecting their communities. More than that, ideas and programs were described to explain what clumps at local, state or regional flushs were doing or could do to dissolve the issues.

Combining this store of knowledge and experience with private and public plans and programs already in a less degree than way has enabled the partnership to extract the risk of five principal actions and implementation strategies that constitute the National Call To Action To prefer Oral Health. These actions crystallize the necessary and sufficient tasks to be undertaken to assure that all Americans can achieve optimal oral health. It is abundantly clear that these are not tasks that can be accomplished on any single agency, be it the Federal sway state health agencies, or private organizations. Rather, just as the actions have been evolveed through a process of collaboration and communication across public and private domains, their auspicious execution calls for partnerships that unite private and public clusters focused on common goals. The germs for such future collaborative efforts have already been sown from all those who participated in the progression in a continuously ascending gradation of this Call To Action. We appreciate their dedication and take it as our mutual responsibility to further partnership activities and monitor their impact forward the health of the public. We are confident that sizable rewards in health and well-being can accrue for all Americans as these actions are implemented.

Introduction

The National Call To Action To advance Oral Health is addressed to professional organizations and individuals make anxioused with the health of their associate Americans. It is an invitation to expand plans, activities, and programs designed to aid oral health and prevent disease, especially to change into the health disparities that affect members of racial and ethnic clusters poor people, many who are geographically isolated, and others who are vulnerable because of special oral health care wants The National Call To Action To advance Oral Health, referred to as the Call To Action, muses the work of a partnership of public and private organizations who have specified a vision, goals, and a series of actions to achieve the goals. It is their chance of a favorable result to inspire others to join in the effort, bringing their expertise and experience to enrich the partnership and thus accelerate a emotion to enhance the oral and general health and well-being of all Americans.