DENT 5402 Prevention and Oral Health Promotion Spring Semester 2008 Notes To Accompany January 31, 2008 PowerPoint Slides on Fluoride: A Public Health Perspective David O. Born Key Objectives This slide presents the key points you should take away from the lecture. The textbook contains three chapters dealing with fluoride information, all of which is valuable and important. As emerging dental professionals, you should be familiar with that material as a matter of conscience and responsibility. Time only permits us to touch on a very few key points in the curriculum. How does it work? Drs. Rudney and Versluis are offering a required course on “Topics in Dental Biochemistry.” One module in that course includes several lectures on the ways fluoride interacts to prevent caries and to remineralize teeth. We will not cover that material in DENT 5402. Top Ten Achievements….. Note that the CDC and others typically rank community water fluoridation among the top ten greatest public health achievements of the last century. Generally these accolades recognize the fact that literally millions of people have been positively impacted at very low cost and are able to receive disease protection with little or no conscious effort on their part. Community Water Fluoride Details and background on this slide can be found in your textbook. The text does not provide much information Minnesota. Minnesota’s law took effect in 1967 and as can be seen in the two following slides, has had a significant impact on the State’s population.Fluoride Questions….Benefits, Safety, Costs….. The Center for Disease Control has an excellent website with a wealth of information on fluoride. The information in updated on a regular basis, and the information in these slides is drawn from that site. You should become familiar with the site and refer to it over the course of your training – you will definitely want to rely on it once you are in practice. The ADA also has links on its website to fluoride information for both the professional and the public. Much of the ADA information is linked back to the CDC’s website. Links are provided at the end of the slide presentation. Fluoride Delivery Systems This information is drawn from a variety of sources, including the former head of Minnesota’s dental health programs, Ms. Mildred Roesch, RDH. The World Health Organization published an important Technical report in 1994, Fluorides and Oral Health, which discusses most of these delivery systems in a concise and highly readable manner. The report itself is highly recommended as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the ways in which fluoride in viewed and used around the world – all this in less than fifty pages. The two charts following the “delivery systems” slide are drawn or adapted from the WHO report. The “world population” pie chart, by the way, didn’t copy well. It illustrates the fact that while one might assume from the previous bar chart (Worldwide Use….) that a lot of people are benefiting from fluoride, in fact, only about 14% of the world’s population are receiving fluoride in amounts sufficient to provide protection against caries. Current Recommendations The current recommendation recognize that persons in the US and many other cultures are receiving multiple fluoride exposures on a daily basis and public health scientists need to monitor and examine public policy to ensure that preventive practices are in line with “best evidence.” Fluoride policy and practice in the US in subject to continuing