Research directions in oral health promotion for older adults

Health education and health promotion facilitate voluntary adoption of behaviors and provide educational, organizational, economic, and environmental supports for behaviors conductive to health. Health education and health promotion are complementary and any effort to eliminate oral disease requires both activities. Federal research initiatives in oral health promotion have encouraged more biomedical and behavioral research on oral health and aging through the establishment of research centers. Other initiatives have been established to speed the generation of basic and clinical research. Recent initiatives encourage research on aging and provide opportunities for oral health promotion during the coming decade. These include Healthy People 2000, the nation's health objectives for the decade; the NIH framework for the development of a strategic plan, and the NIDR Long-Range Research Plan, Broadening the Scope.