2008 IOH Conference: "Oral Health in Aging America"

Conference Highlights

The 3rd annual IOH Conference in Sept 2008 in Chicago, IL focused on oral health concerns facing America's seniors. This event featured the nation's top authorities on aging and geriatric oral health to highlight clinical issues and promote solutions for improving dental care access and treatment for older adults.

Key Topics

The 2008 conference covered a diverse array of topics relevant to "aging in America" including:

• Changes in America's aging population
• How to slow and even reverse the aging process
• Challenges of treating older adults
• Workforce shortages in geriatric oral health care
• Managing oral and systemic health together
• Innovative, team-based models for care delivery
• Improving access with new insurance models
• Making dental care integral to health care reform

Calls to Action

• Raising Awareness — We need more progressive efforts to promote oral health education and prevention, such as social marketing campaigns and partnering with organizations like the AARP, which reaches a broad and diverse audience.
• Getting Insurance Companies on Board — Dental professionals need to educate policymakers on oral health as a risk factor in systemic health, and do so in terms of economics. By emphasizing the quantifiable value of dental care, we have a better chance of having it built into mainstream health care plans.
• Advancing Oral Health Care with a Broader Perspective — To really improve oral health for all Americans, we need to start advocating outside the dental care system, looking at new ways to collaborate with stakeholders beyond the dental office who can complement our efforts and even make our work more efficient and cost-effective.