Oral, Head & Neck Cancer Awareness Month

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About Oral Cancer Awareness Month

We are proud to announce that actress, Blythe Danner, who lost her husband, Bruce Paltrow, to oral cancer over 10 years ago will be hitting the talk show circuit to promote Oral Cancer Awareness Month. Her first stop is the Katie Couric show in March, followed by the Rachel Ray show in early April. She will be driving the public to our event calendar to find a free screening office in their community. Your dental practice does not want to miss this opportunity to be featured on our calendar as an office that is actively engaged in oral cancer screenings.

April is Oral Cancer Awareness month and OCF would like to invite you to join us in our national screening campaign to end oral cancer! Oral Cancer awareness in the American public is low. Approximately 42,000 people in the U.S. will be newly diagnosed with oral cancer this year. As you are well aware, dentists are often the first line of defense against oral cancer, through the process of early discovery.

While smoking and tobacco use is still a major risk factor, the fastest growing segment or oral cancer patients is young, healthy, nonsmoking individuals due to the connection to the HPV virus. We cannot stop this virus from spreading; our only hope to save lives is with professional involvement and public awareness. This is your opportunity to get involved and give back to your community in the hopes to raise oral cancer awareness and the need for early detection in order to save lives. Together, we have the opportunity to make a difference in the world of oral cancers. Please join with us.

How can you help

We are asking dental and medical professionals to become engaged in a free screening event, for at least 3 hours on any day during the month of April, in your community. Opportunistic screening is our best hope of reducing the death rate from this disease. OCF will support you with the materials that you need to conduct the event, and help you get exposure for it in your community and on our heavily Googled event calendar. We will also provide you with ideas on how your office can promote its event, which is key to getting a great turn out.

By participating in oral cancer awareness month, you are not only offering a positive service to your community but it is also a great way to build your practice. Many people that come in for screenings will turn into regular patients and may even need additional dental work done. All offices that participate this year will receive a certificate of partnership with the Oral Cancer Foundation and Oral Cancer Awareness Month. Perfect to frame in your office, letting all your patients know you are a dental office that cares about your patient's health and is actively involved in oral cancer screenings.

SUBMIT YOUR EVENT!

Pick one day, morning or afternoon to hold your free screening event in April. We ask that you choose a minimum of 3 hours. Multiple days are welcomed as well!

Materials Provided

Beginning in March, we will be sending all participating free screening sites the following materials:

Patient Education Brochures covering risk factors, signs and symptoms

Activist Buttons for the staff

Official oral cancer awareness wristbands for the staff

Certificate of participation in oral cancer awareness month free screening event

Forms Available for download

Press release

Screening release form

Referral Forms

Ideas/Suggestions on ways to market your event

Poster for promotional use

Please note that it is important to promote your free screening event in order to get the public to attend. While, OCF will be issuing a national press release driving the public to our event calendar, you still need to market your office within your community. We have provided ideas and suggestions on ways to endorse your free screening event. Please plan ahead, and take the time to take advantage of these suggestions.

Thank you for your participation!

Become an OCF Member

Let your patients and community know you are a concerned and involved dental practice by displaying your OCF membership plaque in your office. We will also provide you with more patient education brochures, a lapel jacket button as well as a copy of “Oral Cancer: The Dentist’s Role in Diagnosis, Management, Rehabilitation and Prevention” by Robert A. Ord.

One of our mission's and that of the dental and medical community is to raise people's awareness of a disease that is taking a life every hour of the day in the US. We encourage medical and dental offices as well as treatment facilities and hospitals to routinely have days in which the public may come to their office or facility and receive a simple visual and tactile screening at no charge. So while it is important that the national awareness month (April) has hundreds of offices and doctors opening their doors to the public, the disease does not go away in other months. Please consider having routine public screening days throughout the year as your practice and facilities schedule will allow. The foundation's calendar system will accept your screening events all year long, our staff will help you understand how to properly promote your event, and we will provide you with the necessary forms, posters, and educational handouts that you need to have a successful event. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to call the foundation and discuss with our staff your needs and ideas to be engaged in this important effort.

Click HERE to become an official OCF Member

Get Involved

As a private individual, company, or member of the medical dental profession, do you have a blog, a web site, or other vehicle in which you can reach out to others? The viral spread of the oral cancer message, and a need for national attention to a disease that is growing in incidence every year, and which many knowledgable treatment professionals are using the word epidemic to describe, can cascade public awareness into positive change.

Put a link on your site to the Oral Cancer Foundation to raise awareness of the diseases. Grass roots viral spread of the idea is an inexpensive means to achieving our goals of reduce deaths from oral cancers through early discovery. A couple of simple facts such as; 100 new people in the US EVERY DAY will be newly diagnosed with an oral cancer, and that one person EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY, 24/7/365 will die from it will help people understand that it is not rare, and screening for it is as important as their their cervical, prostate, breast and other exams cancer exams that are now so common to us all. With the billions of web sties, and social networking entities like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. out there, will you help make this message go viral?

Help us spread the word about oral, head & neck cancer awareness month by posting this banner or your blog or web site. Just copy the code below the banner and paste it into your desired page. If you use Twitter please press the button.

Help promote Oral Cancer Awareness Week on your own web site

Copy the code in the window below and paste it on your web site, blog etc. to help spread the word about this national effort.

Spread the word about the Oral Cancer Foundation

Copy the code in the window below and paste it on your web site, blog etc. to help spread information about the disease, and the work of OCF.

OCF's Partners for the 2013 Oral Cancer Awareness Month

If your organization wishes to be an official partner of the foundation, please contact the foundation's director, Brian Hill, at 949-723-4400 (Pacific time zone)