Global Health Through Oral Health: Issues & Challenges with Dr. Lois Cohen
Dr. Lois Cohen, Consultant and Paul G. Rogers Ambassador for Global Health Research, spoke with Dr. Chiraz Guessaier about her participation in the Women Dentist Worldwide Forum during the FDI World Congress in Poznan Poland.
Highlights
Dr. Cohen spoke at the FDI’s Women Dentist Worldwide Forum in Poland about “Global Health through Oral Health: Issues and Challenges”. She focused on global trends in oral health and their implications for gender issues.
The World Health Organization defines health as:
… not only the absence of infirmity and disease, but is also the state of physical, mental and social well-being.
Global health problems, issues and concerns transcend national boundaries and as such, should be addressed through cooperative actions and mutual help in finding solutions. Some of these issues include:
• Sustainable development goals
• Reducing health inequalities
• Social determinants of illness
• Access to clean water
• Food security and nutrition policies
• Women, children and adolescent health as the primary lever to unlock some solutions
• Non-communicable diseases
• Infectious diseases
• Refugee health
• Healthy aging
• Climate change
• Investment in health systems and infrastructure and integrated services
• Workforce challenges – supply/demand/distribution
• Global health professions’ education and trends in educating the team
• Gender analysis
• Electronic health records, shared metric and data
• Global health partnership and coordinated response
• Health-related workforce programs
• Health diplomacy
• Health volunteerism
• Science communication and advocacy
• Women in health leadership
• Environmental protection – phasing out Hg and amalgam
• Neglected oral tropical diseases
• Antibiotic resistance and infection control
Sustainable development goals are the foundation of many of these issues. Determinants of health stem from other upstream sectors such as housing, water systems, agriculture, environment, education, economic development and trade policies. Oral and general health can only be addressed by partnering with institutes and sectors outside the health stream.
Oral healthcare providers can make a significant impact by understanding how they interact with these sectors in society. Using water and sanitation as an example, it would be ideal for oral health professionals to work with water engineers to ensure the water supply is clean and that there is an appropriate level of fluoride in the water prior to the infrastructure being built or developed.
Many opportunities to drive economic development in the least developed countries as well as middle-income and highly industrialized countries come from the ingenuity of women. For example, in Bangladesh, female community health workers were trained in rural areas to deliver services. They were successful, remained in the rural areas and drove economic change. Women have a particular leadership style which includes collaborative skills and interpersonal relationship-building that lends itself to group dynamics. Unfortunately, in the oral health community, women have these skills but they are underdeveloped and are not prominent in leadership roles.
Non-existent work-site programs for oral health represent a lost opportunity to empower working parents to be role models for their children. There is an economic cost for both employers and employees associated with mothers and fathers taking time from work to take their children to the dentist for oral health problems as well as missed school hours or days for children.
Currently, there is a push towards exploring gender differences with respect to health research. Dental schools are also moving to include women’s health in the dental curriculum. It is important to look at ethnic and racial differences to see how cultural dimensions affect women’s health as well as cross-cultural differences.
Organizations have an important role in promoting women’s leadership by creating platforms for discussion. Past leaders, male or female could be asked or volunteer to work and mentor up-and-coming females in the profession as leaders also. Publications and interviews created or distributed through the organization can also be used for women to inspire other women.