Addressing the Bottle Necks of Global Oral Health to Tackle the Growing Epidemic of Noncommunicable Diseases

Abstract

Background: Oral health touches every aspect of our lives and still it is been taken for granted. The access and affordability to oral health care services are very limited and expensive especially in developing countries. Objectives: The article highlights the importance of global oral health and how it can tackle the growing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) epidemic. Dental caries remains a significant problem even among the developed nations affecting 60% to 70 % of the children. Oral cancers, Qat chewing, craniofacial anomalies, and dental trauma contribute significantly to the global burden of diseases. Despite the magnitude of oral illness, there is neglect in global oral health, resulting in lack of combined action and support within the arena. Conclusions: Oral conditions share many common risk factors with NCDs and are also affected by similar social determinants. The Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting on the prevention and control of NCDs recognizes that oral diseases pose a significant burden for many countries and these diseases also share common risk factors of NCDs and can benefit from the multisectoral and multipronged approaches to NCDs. To address the existing inequities and inequalities in oral health care services globally, it is vital to ensure coverage for the poor and disadvantaged populations. Recommendations: There is a great need to develop some measurable oral health goals for global comparison in order to track, reduce oral disease burden, and to promote good oral health thereby advancing global public health.