| Summary: | Oral health is essential to overall health and well-being. That relationship was a major conclusion of a Surgeon General's report on oral health some 20 years ago, yet the many ways in which oral health is related to general health remain obscure for most of us. And although we are aware that some individuals enjoy better oral health than others, we are less likely to understand why clear and strong differences in oral health--even inequities--are found for various groups of people within our society. Finally, we rarely acknowledge the ways in which oral health and disease are inextricably involved in major social and health challenges--including the ongoing crises of opioid misuse and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Each of these observations, moreover, begs consideration of how best to address oral health challenges in ways that ultimately will improve the health and well-being of all. Originally envisioned as an update to the 2000 publication of Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2000), the current work, titled Oral Health in America: Advances and Challenges, has developed as a more far-reaching examination of the nation's oral health. It underscores the ways in which a broad array of health and human concerns are related, emphasizing especially the intersectionality of social and systemic determinants that can create both advantages and disadvantages with respect to oral health, and to health more generally. The report provided here is the result of exhaustive review of scientific knowledge accumulated during the last 20 years. It also is informed by systematic observations of recent influences on our society, especially those resulting from or illuminated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The unanticipated lessons still emerging from this unprecedented health event are demonstrating that considerable work lies ahead for all of us concerned with the nation's health
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