Common Risk Factor Approach - Interventions with Results

Despite the number of years of acknowledging the need for an integrated approach to medical and oral health disease management, there has been little efforts in the field to facilitate this integrated approach for both child and adult health management. Oral health is determined by diet, hygiene, smoking, alcohol use, stress and trauma, similar factors involved in the development of other chronic medical conditions. Collaborative programmes using integrated messages and actions to address factors common to many chronic conditions are both economic and rational in both developed and developing countries.

A number of chronic diseases have common risk factors and many of these are relevant to more than one disease. The common risk factor approach is aimed at promoting general health by controlling a small number of risk factors with attendant impact on a large number of diseases at a relatively low cost. The approach gives room for greater efficiency and effectiveness because integrated measures directed at preventing multiple diseases and oral health are usually more operational than single disease-specific approaches.

The common risk factor approach eliminates the duplication of efforts and eradicates the delivery of conflicting messages to the public. This paper shares a few notable examples relating to food policy, health promoting schools and oral hygiene and hand-washing /de-worming programmes and reviews the challenges encountered in efforts aimed at implementing the common risk factor approach for the prevention of oral and general diseases and overall improvement of individual and societal health.