Oral health and systemic health outcomes: A call for interdisciplinary action

To make the case, from periodontology and dental public health, for interdisciplinary action on oral and systemic health, and to set out recommendations for practice, policy, education, and research.

A joint working group of the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP) and the European Association of Dental Public Health (EADPH), with public-health stakeholders and delegates from organized medicine (the World Heart Federation, WONCA Europe and the European Forum for Primary Care), synthesized the epidemiological, mechanistic, preventive and health-systems evidence, and developed consensus recommendations.

Oral diseases affect around 3.5 billion people and share modifiable risk factors (free sugars, tobacco, and alcohol) and social and commercial determinants with the major non-communicable diseases (NCDs); inadequate oral hygiene is an additional oral-specific factor. This argues for integrating oral health into general health through a common risk factor approach rather than disease silos. Periodontitis has the strongest evidence for systemic interactions and, unusually among oral diseases, its treatment improves glycemic control in diabetes and inflammatory or vascular surrogates, though evidence for major clinical events remains limited; other links rest largely on shared risk factors and mechanisms (an asymmetry of evidence, not of public-health importance). Prevention and integrated care remain under-implemented.

Oral health must be recognized as integral to general health and embedded within NCD strategies and universal health coverage through interprofessional, intersectoral action that also tackles the social and commercial determinants and reduces inequalities.

Equipping all health and social-care professionals to promote oral self-care, screen and refer, and prioritize periodontal prevention and treatment, can improve both oral and systemic outcomes.