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A person’s oral health impacts their overall health and quality of life. Moreover, oral disease is preventable. Dental caries can be prevented with daily brushing and flossing, a healthy diet, and simple preventive measures such as fluoride. Limiting alcohol and avoiding tobacco is important for the prevention of oral cancer. Yet many Americans do not benefit from available preventive measures because they have not successfully incorporated oral self-care into their daily routine, lack access to dental care, or live in communities without fluoridated water. This “prevention gap” results in an unnecessarily high burden of oral disease nationwide. Dental caries is the most common chronic disease of childhood. One-quarter (25%) of children aged 2–5 and half (50%) of children aged 12–15 suffer from tooth decay. Nearly 25% of adults aged 20–64 report having untreated dental caries, which at any age can lead to pain, tooth loss, and infection. Among older adults (65 years and above), 25% have lost all of their teeth—putting them at risk for compromised nutrition and other complications. Oral and pharyngeal cancers, often diagnosed too late, kill more than 7,800 Americans each year, nearly double the number of patients who die from cervical cancer. Oral disease impacts systemic health, particularly for patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes. Failing to prevent or control the progression of oral disease may increase the risk of serious adverse health outcomes. The cost of this “silent epidemic” is mounting. In 2013, the total cost of dental services reached $111 billion with significant spending on restorative care for oral disease that could have been prevented or—if caught earlier—treated with lower-cost, lower-risk interventions. Utilization and source of care patterns are also troubling, with an increasing number of Americans turning to the emergency department (ED) for non-traumatic acute or non-urgent oral health conditions.13 In 2010 alone, Americans made 2.1 million visits to EDs for dental conditions at an estimated cost of $867 million to $2.1 billion.13,14 Between 2000 and 2008, hospitalization for complications of abscessed teeth cost the U.S. healthcare system $858.9 million.