In 2015, the United Nations set forth their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which included seventeen Global Goals designed “to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years.”[1] And though its aim addresses many of these goals, the Unspoken Smiles Foundation is poised to make significant progress towards the third (Good Health and Wellbeing) throughout the developing world.
It is no secret that there is a direct relationship between an individual’s oral health and their overall health. Indeed, examinations of the mouth can expose everything from inadequate nutrition to unhealthy lifestyle choices like tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption. And while great strides have been made to address this in the developed world, care in the developing world continues to fall drastically short.
In terms of oral health issues, the most visible is tooth decay, which represents “the most widespread chronic disease in the world and constitutes a major global heath challenge.”[2] This decay, when left untreated, can result in a variety of issues, ranging from pain and infection to the formation of abscesses and septicemia. And though it is easy to think of this exclusively as a health problem, it is important to note that the consequences are far-reaching. Because not only are these maladies extremely costly to treat for the person, but they represent a significant strain on the economy, as a Canadian study “found that 3.5 working hours/year/person were lost due to oral diseases, translating to productivity losses of over CND $1 billion/year for Canada alone.”[3]
But the reality is that these issues are largely preventable and often the result of a poor understanding of basic oral hygiene. This is why the mission of Unspoken Smiles is so crucial because, in addition to providing basic dental cleanings, disease screenings and fluoride treatments, they educate the children in proper oral hygiene techniques. By implementing a curriculum for children with an emphasis on oral health awareness and proper oral hygiene, the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is put into practice.
And this is why preventative care and education form the basic tenets of their mission, because the aim of the foundation is not to provide charity, but to transform the way these children perceive oral health and its relationship to their overall wellbeing. Which is why the curriculum is implemented at the early childhood and elementary level because, to instill these habits early on, is to make them part of a lifelong routine.
[1] “UN adopts new Global Goals, charting sustainable development for people and planet by 2030.” U.N. News Centre. United Nations, 25 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
[2] FDI World Dental Federation. “The Challenge of Oral Disease.” The Oral Health Atlas (2015): 16. Print.
[3] FDI World Dental Federation. “The Challenge of Oral Disease.” The Oral Health Atlas (2015): 56. Print.