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Home > For Your Practice > Health and Science > Surgeon Generals Report

Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General (2000)

The 2000 Surgeon General’s Report on Oral Health is to alert Americans to the full meaning of oral health and its importance to general health and well-being. Great progress has been made in reducing the extent and severity of common oral diseases. Successful prevention measures adopted by communities, individuals, and oral health professionals have resulted in marked improvements in the nation’s oral and dental health.

The terms oral health and general health should not be interpreted as separate entities. Oral health is integral to general health; this report provides important reminders that oral health means more than healthy teeth and that you cannot be healthy without oral health. Further, the report outlines existing safe and effective disease prevention measures that everyone can adopt to improve oral health and prevent disease.

For a third decade, the nation has developed a plan for the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, including oral health, embodied in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document, Healthy People 2010.