Dental public health, its implication and challenges in India: A review

Oral public health issues are grossly neglected in a developing country like India, primary reason to which is the non life threatening nature of oral health problems. Indian state governments are already financially over burdened to acknowledge the burden of oro-dental problems and its connection with the systemic health. State governments lack the capability to provide oral health services to all. Awareness is being spread, however services provided are limited only to the people living in urban areas thereby skewing the patient to dentist ratio in remote communities and in rural areas. Further challenges like lack of auxiliary staffs to provide even the basic primary services in the rural areas, lack of incentives for young dentists to work in rural areas, lack of representation from oral community amongst the policymakers have to be overcome in the future. Technological advancements like tele-dentistry should be used more frequently, new concepts like dental homes should be explored to increase the penetration of oral health services in rural areas.