Oral health has been isolated from traditional healthcare and health policy for too long, despite the major global public health burden of oral diseases, according to a Lancet Series on Oral Health , published today in The Lancet. Professor Marco A. Peres Professor Marco Peres, from Menzies Health Institute Queensland and Griffith University’s School of Dentistry and Oral Health, is the only Australian academic in the international team of authors of the Lancet series. “In Australia, dental caries affects 34% of five-and-six year-old children and 46.2% of nine-and-10-year olds. In older children with permanent dentition the prevalence is 9.2% among six to eight-year-olds and nearly 40% in 12 to 14-year-olds,’’ says Professor Peres. Failure of the global health community to prioritise the global burden of oral health has led to calls from Lancet Series authors for the radical reform of dental care, tightened regulation of the sugar industry, and […]