The Alliance for a Cavity Free Future in its original Declaration in 2010 made clear that "Global collaborative action is needed to challenge global leaders and other stakeholders - including country and community leaders, health and dental health professionals, public policy and education communities, and the public - to learn the importance of caries as a disease continuum and to participate in action toward the delivery of comprehensive caries prevention and management that can positively influence the continuing problem of caries.
This action should ensure that primary prevention with appropriate fluoride strategies are in place, promote the preventive control of initial caries lesions through education to change human behaviour and the use of appropriate, evidence-based technologies.”
Since that time the charity has been pursuing that Mission and its evolving Goals in the context of changing challenges and opportunities, including the WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan, the Bangkok Declaration and our work with “ACFF Oral Health Policy Labs”. An overview will be provided from the Clinical Dental Teams Perspective.
FRSE BDS PhD FDS RCS (Eng) FDS RCS (Edin) FFGDP (UK) FFPH -Perth, Scotland
Emeritus Professor Nigel Pitts was until 2024 Dean of Research Impact and a member of the One King’s Impact Delivery Group at King’s College London. At the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences he was also Director of Innovation and Impact for the Faculty, Professor of Dental Health and an Honorary Consultant in Dental Public Health to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and for the NHS’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).
Professor Pitts graduated in Dentistry from the University of London, moved to the University of Hong Kong to help set up a new Dental School in the 1980s and returned to the UK to take up the Directorship of the Dental Health Services Research Unit at the University of Dundee in 1986, where he also served as Dean of Dentistry. He moved to King’s College London in January 2013.
Professor Pitts has authored > 255 peer-reviewed publications and > 115 other publications and has an h-index of 86. He assembled a portfolio of research projects supported by external peer-reviewed grants of over £20 million, in dental health services research, cariology research and innovation for clinical practice.
In addition to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh - FRSE, he holds Fellowships from the Faculty of General Dental Practitioners (UK), the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and of Edinburgh, and the Faculty of Public Health. These are indicative of an unusually broad career spanning science, clinical practice, technology transfer, public health and societal impact.
Emeritus Professor Pitts played a significant role in research assessment for the UK Government and served on the 2001 Clinical Dentistry RAE Panel and for the later Research Excellence Framework (REF) Unit of Assessment 3 Panel for REF 2014 and REF 2021. Within King's he, with colleagues, authored three very highly rated Impact Case Studies and contributed to the leadership of the highly successful overall multi-Professional King’ College London submission to Unit of Assessment 3 for REF 2021.
Professor Pitts is a Past President of EADPH – the European Association for Dental Public Health, as well as BASCD - the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry and ORCA - the European Organization for Caries Research (ORCA). He has been awarded research prizes from: the International Association for Dental Research (two Distinguished Scientist Awards) as well as from the European Organization for Caries Research (ORCA), the FDI World Dental Federation, and the British Dental Association Research Foundation.
Currently, Professor Pitts is Chief Strategy and Advocacy Officer of the Alliance for a Cavity Free Future charity, Chair of the ICDAS Foundation (which coordinates ICCMS - the International Caries Classification and Management System, and CariesCare International). He has also been working with the WHO and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), and a number of research and professional organisations, seeking to improve Dentistry, Oral Health and Health.
