New Resource Highlights Innovations in Oral Health Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS
October 17, 2012 - By Ronald Valdiserri, M.D., M.P.H., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Infectious Diseases, and Director, Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
 I would like to call your attention to an excellent new resource that can help advance our efforts to improve
health outcomes for people living with HIV: " Innovations in Oral Health Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS ," a special
supplement to Public Health Reports (the official journal of the U.S. Public Health Service. This PHR supplement presents findings from
the Innovations in Oral Health Care Initiative , which involved 15, five-year demonstration projects
supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration's HIV/AIDS Bureau with resources from the Ryan White
Care Act's Special Projects of National Significance . The
findings presented in this supplement show that innovative program models can engage and retain people who are living with HIV/AIDS
into oral health-care services in both urban and non-urban settings. The articles in this special issue represent important
additions to our body of knowledge about oral health care for people living with HIV/AIDS.
 Good oral health and good general health are inseparable. As discussed at length in the Surgeon General's 2000
report, Oral Health in America , oral
health is essential for general health and well-being across the lifespan. It is especially critical for people who are living with
HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) because inadequate oral health care can undermine the success of HIV treatment regimens, nutritional intake, and
health outcomes. Oral infections also may spread to other parts of the body, which can be particularly dangerous for individuals
with compromised immune systems. (Read more about this topic on the AIDS.gov HIV/AIDS Basics
page Oral Health Issues.)
As Surgeon General Regina Benjamin notes in her introduction to
the new Public Health Reports supplement, "Inadequate oral health care can undermine HIV treatment and diminish quality of life, yet many
individuals living with HIV are not receiving the necessary oral health care that would optimize their treatment."
To help us address this and improve health outcomes for PLWHA, I encourage you to read the supplement and share it with your
colleagues and constituencies.
Tbcasts of the conference sessions can be found at the following link:
http://aidsvac.capitalreach.com/
For more information, please visit www.geovax.com.
Check back with the AIDS.gov blog later today. We'll be posting highlights from Sunday's USCA opening day plenary sessions;
and tomorrow we'll share highlights from the second day of the conference.
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Source: http://blog.aids.gov/2012/10/2012-u-s-conference-on-aids-highlights-from-pre-conference-summit-to-end-the-hivaids-epidemic-in-america.html
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