By 2030, the majority of countries should have an operational national oral health action plan, says the WHO

The Global Oral Health Action Plan for 2023 to 2030, published by the World Health Organization, recognises oral diseases as a significant health burden – and prevention as the key solution.

The global burden of oral diseases and conditions is an urgent public health challenge with social, economic and environmental impacts. The main oral diseases and conditions are estimated to affect close to 3.5 billion people worldwide.

Additionally, oral diseases and conditions disproportionately affect poor, vulnerable and marginalised members of society, often including people who are on low incomes; people living with disability; older people living alone or in care homes; refugees, people in prisons or those living in remote and rural communities; and people from minority or other socially marginalised groups.

The cost of bad oral health

This prevalence of oral diseases also has its price tag. Oral diseases are already the third most expensive area of healthcare in the European Union, just behind diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In other regions of the world, the situation is no different, and if anything, the picture is even more dramatic.

It is estimated that in 2018, oral diseases resulted in direct costs of €90 billion in Europe in terms of treatment expenditure. In terms of costs, this puts oral diseases only behind diabetes (€119 billion) and heart disease (€111 billion). Globally, public and private expenditures for oral healthcare have reached an estimated 387 billion US dollars.

Fortunately, these staggering numbers have a silver lining: most oral diseases and conditions are preventable and can be effectively addressed through population-based public health measures. That’s where the WHO’s Global Strategy on Oral Health for 2023 to 2030 comes into play.

The vision of the WHO’s Global Strategy on Oral Health is simple – universal health coverage for oral health for all people and communities by 2030. Reaching this seemingly simple yet difficult-to-achieve goal would enable people to enjoy the highest attainable state of oral health and contribute to them leading healthier and more active lives. 

To put it in numbers, the overarching global target of the plan is that by 2030, 80% of the global population will be entitled to essential oral healthcare services. The secondary plan is to reduce the burden of oral diseases by achieving a relative reduction of the combined global prevalence of the main oral diseases and conditions over the life course by 10%.

Six strategic objectives that will change the oral care landscape

To reach these goals the Global Strategy on Oral Health outlines six strategic objectives for the member states of the WHO, but also for private stakeholders and civil society organisations.

1. The first objective, oral health governance, aims to improve political and resource commitment to oral health, strengthen leadership and create win-win partnerships within and outside the health sector. The global target of this strategic objective is that by 2030, 80% of countries will have an operational national oral health policy, strategy or action plan.
2. Oral health promotion and oral disease prevention aims to enable all people to achieve the best possible oral health and address the social and commercial determinants and risk factors of oral diseases and conditions. The target of this objective is for 50% of countries to implement policy measures aiming to reduce free sugars intake by 2030.
3. The third objective focuses on health workers with the intention of developing innovative workforce models and revising and expanding competency-based education to respond to population oral health needs. It states that by 2030, 50% of countries should have an operational national health workforce policy, plan or strategy that includes a workforce trained to respond to population oral health needs.
4. Oral healthcare, the fourth objective, aims to integrate essential oral healthcare and ensure related financial protection and essential supplies in primary healthcare. The plan is that by 2030, 80% of countries will have oral healthcare services generally available in primary healthcare facilities.
5. The fifth objective is concerned with oral health information systems, seeking to enhancesurveillance and health information systems to provide timely and relevant feedback on oral health to decision-makers for evidence-based policymaking. It states that by 2030, 80% of countries will have a monitoring framework for the national oral health policy, strategy or action plan.
6. The last objective, oral health research agendas, proposes the creation and continual updating of context- and needs-specific research that is focused on the public health aspects of oral health. The quantifiable target of this objective is that by 2030, 50% of countries have a national oral health research agenda focused on public health and population-based interventions.

Written down like this, one after another, these objectives and their targets might seem overwhelming at first. But they create a common goal that all of us – dentists, companies, policymakers, organisations, politicians, and others – should strive for together.