Image Source: American Dental Association
This Friday, on March 20, FDI World Dental Federation will sponsor an event called World Oral Health Day. FDI World Dental Federation, or Fédération dentaire international, was established in Paris in 1900 and serves as an overarching representative of more than 200 member dental associations in 130 countries worldwide. The American Dental Association is a member. Think of it as sort of a United Nations of the worldwide dental industry. Now based out of Geneva, Switzerland, the FDI World Dental Federation is considered the world’s largest organization representing the dental profession.
World Oral Health Day is recognized every year on March 20 and is promoted by FDI to increase awareness worldwide of oral health issues. Their goal is to reduce the overall global disease burden. Each year the event has a different theme. This year, in 2015, the theme is “World Oral Health Day 2015, Smile for Life!” The focus is promote the practice of good lifelong oral hygiene.
Our Take on World Oral Health Day
Last month, we devoted our blog posts to National Children’s Dental Health Month because we believe it’s an important national health observance. We feel the same about World Oral Health Day, even though it’s rarely highlighted in America.
We believe the message this year is an important one since you only get one set of adult teeth. Many of the oral health issues people face are preventable with good oral hygiene routines, which is an especially important message for our readers with children.
Our blog post this week is dedicated to promoting the Smile for Life! campaign as the FDI World Dental Federation celebrates World Oral Health Day this March 20th.
Thanks for Reading!
We hope you learned about an often overlooked health observance in this week’s blog post. If you enjoy learning more about dentistry or reading interesting dental facts, please like or share our Facebook page.