Editorial: Periodontal Disease – A Public Health Problem

In 2010, the World Health Organization published an important report entitled "Equity, Social Determinants and Public Health Programmes" (1, 2) revealing that among priority public health conditions, oral health represents a global problem linked to inequalities in social circumstances (3). Periodontal disease, a chronic inflammatory disease resulting in progressive attachment and alveolar bone loss, is, after dental caries, one of the most important oral diseases contributing to the global burden of chronic disease (4), and it meets the criteria for consideration as a public health problem that requires action, as defined by Thomson et al. ( Furthermore, several research studies have associated periodontal disease with various systemic diseases and conditions, such as diabetes, HIV, atherosclerotic vascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, adverse pregnancy outcomes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome (11-18); iii) the costs of treating the periodontal disease are substantial (19-22); and iv) due to the current state of knowledge of the risk factors implicated in the etiopathogenesis of periodontal disease [e.g., smoking (23, 24), alcohol (25-27), poor diet, lack of exercise (28-30), stress, distress, and psychological-coping resistance (31-34)], there is sufficient information to allow the effective control of the common forms of the disease.