GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH AND FLUORIDE AS A VACCINE FOR TOOTH DECAY

Global Public Health and fluoride as a vaccine for tooth Decay takes a new look at public health, analyzing it from the perspective of cavities, which are reported as the third most prevalent disease in the world according to the WHO. It thus assesses its real social and economic impact, since its consequences cause billions of dollars in losses in treatment worldwide, even leading to death, and engages in an urgent paradigm shift focusing on preventive actions, such as dental sealants and the use of fluoride in daily hygiene and water fluoridation. It provides a summary of 75 years of work compiled in daily and academic clinical dentistry, with students and scientific articles. The book aims to combine preventive experience and high-tech dental treatments, ranging from indigenous people living in remote areas of the Amazon and critically ill patients in intensive care units to Ameri-cans and Europeans living in major global capitals. One of the few things they have in common is the experience of tooth decay, which is multifactorial and affects all economic classes, in a spectrum of great experience, relating what the world would be like with well-planned and simply executed preventive activities. The author also recalls the feasible need to create a worldwide campaign, Black March, using the sealant method as a vaccine for the disease, as there is a huge reduction in the severity and involvement of the oral cavity, combining oral health education for health professionals, people with tooth decay and pain, and children, with the aim of improving oral health rates across the planet so that we can reduce private and public spending, promoting quality of life and social well-being.