Abstract
This chapter takes a broad perspective on managing the risks and curative procedures for dental caries and periodontal disease from the perspective of noncommunicable disease. It relates both disorders to other noncommunicable diseases, and explains how effective strategies require a broadly focused sociopolitical and individual assessment to reduce the risk of disease by stabilizing the oral microbiota and avoiding surgically aggressive treatments. Nonetheless, this approach is complex and demanding at both personal and societal levels, which explains why both diseases continue almost unabated globally to place a major burden through discomfort, pain and tooth loss on the general health and well‐being of older populations.