Oral health is an important element in determining the wellbeing of an individual. Poor oral health can affect an individual’s life quality, self-esteem, ability to eat, socialize and speak. Dental health refers to the condition of an individual’s teeth, gum and mouth muscles and bones. Dental health is mainly related to tooth cavities, tooth loss and gum disease and has affected large population of Australia including children and adults. It has contributed to about 5 percent of the burden of non-fatal diseases in the community.
Poor dental health has been linked to deterioration of overall wellbeing of Australia’s population. Since it affects a persona ability to speak and how they appearance, it erodes their self-esteem making them poor participants at school, home, workplace, and all other social places. Let us understand more about the state of Australia oral health.
Challenges
The rising of dental challenges is quiet but of concern in Australia’s health conditions. There is need to understand these challenges in order to come up with ways to improve oral health and foster healthier smiles.
- Tobacco, sugar and alcohol consumption is among the factor that has contributed to poor health in Australia. It causes gum disease and increases the risk of oral cancer.
- Failure of fluoridation of water supplies causes tooth decay. Consuming water with impurities affects tooth enamel and increases the risk of tooth cavities.
- Poor dental hygiene and failure to visit dentist regularly encourages dental issues since the problem escalates without detection. It is advisable to visit experienced dental professional like Dr. Thea Pabustan to detect any dental problem early and treat it to prevent severe problems.
- Difficulty in accessing oral health services due to high cost of private dental care or long waiting time in public dental care.
- Aging population in Australia. Oral health deteriorates with age and most of Australia population is aged which increases dental challenges.
Progress
Although various challenges face the overall oral health in Australia, Australia’s state of dental has improved over the last years.
- The government is putting effort to providing clean water to citizens by fluoridating drinking water. This has reduced tooth decay in children and adults and about 90 percent of Australia population has access to clean water.
- Australia has also invested in oral health programs for communities to educate people of the importance of good oral health and what they must do to improve the dental health.
- Development of preventative oral health services and products to help reduce dental issues among the population. For example, availability of fluoride toothpaste has contributed to dental health.
Future Directions
Australia has put in place some measures to improve future dental health of its population. They have recommended for expansion of dental coverage to ensure even the communities in remote areas can easily access dental health services. They encourage continued expansion of water fluoridation to ensure all people in all areas have access to clean water. Educating people on the need to avoid consuming sugar sweetened food and beverages. They also collect regular national data to help in planning, monitoring and evaluation of overall oral health of the country.
In conclusion, dental health is a fundamental element of overall wellbeing of an individual. Poor dental health can affect your ability how you socialize with others. It can also lower your self-esteem and negatively affect how you participate in social places such as school, work and home. Australia’s population faces some oral health challenges but the government is also working hard to improve the state. Ensuring that all communities can access oral health services easily is one way to improve the country’s oral health state.
