‘Gum Health Day’ is an annual international public-health campaign aiming to raise awareness of the importance of the prevention, early diagnosis, and effective treatment of gum diseases. This year’s campaign on May 12 focuses on the EFP’s new guidelines for the treatment of periodontitis and features a novel “customised content generator” to allow dentists, health organisations, and the public to create their own campaign materials.
“Treat your gums” is the slogan for Gum Health Day 2022, a worldwide awareness campaign organised by the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP). The event aims to inform the public of the detrimental effects of gum diseases – gingivitis, periodontitis, peri-implant mucositis, and peri-implantitis – on both oral and overall health. The campaign calls for the prevention, early detection, and – where necessary – effective treatment of gum diseases.
Although still poorly acknowledged by the public, gum diseases are chronic inflammatory conditions affecting a high proportion of adults worldwide, causing tooth loss and other problems in the mouth. Crucially, gum diseases are also linked to major systemic health issues including diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, adverse pregnancy outcomes, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, erectile dysfunction, certain forms of cancer, and more severe Covid-19 outcomes. This means that gum diseases and their prevention and treatment are of major importance not only for oral health, but also for the whole body.
“This year’s campaign focuses heavily on the treatment part – we know that millions of people suffer from gum diseases that can be treated effectively,” explains Moritz Kebschull, coordinator of Gum Health Day 2022. “‘Treat your gums’ calls for this treatment – with all the documented positive effects for the mouth and whole body – to actually happen.” That is why the hashtag for the campaign is #TreatYourGums, and why the recent EFP-produced clinical practice guidelines on the treatment of periodontitis are a major part of the Gum Health Day 2022 initiative.
“The new EFP-produced clinical practice guidelines on the treatment of all four stages of periodontitis are a crucial development, as they are the first high-quality international guidelines to outline a structured and easily implemented pathway for the efficient and effective treatment of gum disease,“ Prof. Kebschull says. “In a nutshell, gum disease treatment that works!” He adds: “It is important to underline that gum disease is one of the most widespread chronic diseases in the worldwide adult population, and that it is usually painless, so its early detection and successful treatment depends heavily on how fast the patient takes action.”
A major innovation of Gum Health Day 2022 is an EFP-designed “customised content generator”, a feature that allows the federation’s 37 member societies of periodontology, their individual members – as well as practices, hospitals, and members of the public – to customise their own Gum Health Day 2022 materials, based on a series of graphic templates and catchphrases. In the framework of Gum Health Day 2022, the EFP encourages periodontists, dentists, researchers, and other health-related professionals to sign and disseminate the EFP Manifesto: Perio and General Health, an international call to action for the prevention, early detection, and treatment of gum disease. Individuals and organisations are invited to endorse it and join the 1,200+ professionals, dental practices, companies, and universities that have so far supported it.