FDI: the workplace is an untapped prevention channel in oral health
Work takes up roughly a third of adult life, and almost 60% of the world's working-age population is employed. FDI is therefore putting the workplace at the centre of a new podcast episode and of the report Oral Health at Work.
FDI puts the workplace in the focus of prevention
The World Dental Federation (FDI) has released an episode of the podcast The Dental Check-Up devoted to oral health in the workplace. The speakers are Prof. Manu Mathur, chair of the FDI expert group for the implementation and monitoring of Vision 2030 and head of dental public health at Queen Mary University of London, Dr Maria Ryan, executive vice-president and chief clinical officer of Colgate-Palmolive, and Dr Romila Gobin-Beharee, oral health coordinator at the Ministry of Health of Mauritius.
The starting arithmetic is simple. Work takes up roughly a third of adult life, and almost 60% of the world's working-age population is employed. That makes the workplace a setting of great reach which is rarely used in prevention. The discussion draws on FDI's report Oral Health at Work and considers how programmes at employer level can improve employee wellbeing, support productivity and reduce inequalities in oral health.
The participants work through the practical questions of implementation: how to win the employer over, how to measure a programme's effect, and how to gather the evidence that justifies long-term investment. Examples are taken from different settings, and in Mauritius Gobin-Beharee leads national initiatives and the implementation of the National Oral Health Action Plan 2022-2027.
Context
The report was produced with the support of FDI's Vision 2030 industry group, which includes among others Colgate-Palmolive, Haleon, Henry Schein, Ivoclar, Kenvue, Planmeca, Smile Train and Solventum, which is worth bearing in mind when reading the recommendations.
For your practice
- Occupational health protection already exists as a framework in Croatian companies, and oral health is a logical and untapped addition to that framework.
- A practice that wants to work with companies needs a concrete package: a short educational session on site, a protocol for at-risk groups, and performance indicators agreed in advance.
- The argument made to an employer is not clinical but economic, so absence from work and productivity land better than a list of diagnoses.