FDI World Dental Federation, which has 200 dental association members in some 130 countries, is the official representative body and voice of more than 1 million clinicians worldwide. It set itself the task of creating a new definition for oral health as a baseline to develop tools to measure oral health and related indicators. The definition allows FDI to position oral health within the global health agenda in areas such as quality of life and wellbeing and the challenge of an ageing population worldwide. Furthermore, it provides an impetus for FDI activities in favour of worldwide periodontal health. Palabras clave: fundamental human right, non-communicable diseases, quality of life, risk factors, wellbeing