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Aim: The present study aimed to describe the building blocks of the oral health system, including the role that the community plays in strengthening the oral health system in Nigeria. Methodology: This research was a scoping review of the existing literature retrieved from search engines and databases. Thus, we utilised grey literature, peer-reviewed literature, policy documents and websites. The oral health system was analysed using the World Health Organisation's Health systems framework, and we adapted this framework by introducing a seventh block, community participation. We also inserted the links between the oral health service delivery and oral health workforce blocks of the framework to improve the oral health outcomes. Results: More dental clinics are required to improve the availability and accessibility of oral health services. Dental workforce expansion is imperative. This can be approached by training of junior cadre dental professionals and incorporating community health practitioners to deliver basic oral care. There is an unregulated access to medication to treat dental conditions; hence, oral disease treatments need to be included in the country's treatment guidelines to improve standard of care. The government needs to improve on overall health spending and invariably increase oral health care allocation urgently. Furthermore, the country's stewardship of oral health care is hinged on well disseminated and implemented national policies on oral health. The oral health system can achieve its overall goals with community participation, engagement and ownership. Conclusion: Strengthening the oral health system in Nigeria requires urgent attention on each building block and cross-cutting interventions across the system's building blocks. The role of the community will need to be recognised because it is vital in sustaining any organisational change.

Sustainable dental health is reflected in the high quality of the medical act and the high quality of the medical service, which cannot be achieved without considering the existing social context, especially the economic development of a state, where certain economic variables can become real levers of influence. The goal of this paper is twofold—theoretical and empirical. Firstly, at the theoretical level, we provide the context and the development of the health legal framework and the state of the Oral Health System and the provision of dental medical services in the eight Romanian Regions of Development. The second aim is to evaluate the relationship between dental health and well-being for the case of regions of Romania over the period 2001–2015. To review the dental health care in Romania, we will use descriptive analysis as the methodology, and to explore the relationship between dental health and economic determinants, we will use an econometric model, the OLS model. Our working hypothesis is that dental health care is influenced by the economic variables in a country. The results show a positive and significant relationship between dental health care and the most important indicator of well-being, the level of income. Of course, an important role is played by the complexity of education, expressed by research and development, which determines a significant positive relationship with dental health in the development regions of Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The present study aimed to describe the building blocks of the oral health system, including the role that the community plays in strengthening the oral health system in Nigeria. Methodology: This research was a scoping review of the existing literature retrieved from search engines and databases. Thus, we utilised grey literature, peer-reviewed literature, policy documents and websites. The oral health system was analysed using the World Health Organisation's Health systems framework, and we adapted this framework by introducing a seventh block, community participation. We also inserted the links between the oral health service delivery and oral health workforce blocks of the framework to improve the oral health outcomes. Results: More dental clinics are required to improve the availability and accessibility of oral health services. Dental workforce expansion is imperative. This can be approached by training of junior cadre dental professionals and incorporating community health practitioners to deliver basic oral care. There is an unregulated access to medication to treat dental conditions; hence, oral disease treatments need to be included in the country's treatment guidelines to improve standard of care. The government needs to improve on overall health spending and invariably increase oral health care allocation urgently. Furthermore, the country's stewardship of oral health care is hinged on well disseminated and implemented national policies on oral health. The oral health system can achieve its overall goals with community participation, engagement and ownership. Conclusion: Strengthening the oral health system in Nigeria requires urgent attention on each building block and cross-cutting interventions across the system's building blocks. The role of the community will need to be recognised because it is vital in sustaining any organisational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European health systems have developed starting from two different models, namely the Beveridge model and Bismark model, respectively, each of them having different funding and organization. At its turn, the oral health system, as an integrating part of the national system, shows some characteristics and particularities favorable or not to the patients and professionals in this field. The aim of this paper is to compare the oral health system of different European countries by means of the oral health indicators (DMFT at 12-year-olds, percentage of totally edentate people) and economic indicators (GDP percentage for health, dentists’ annual average wages, and oral health expenses per inhabitant). Moreover, the study lays focus on the distribution of professionals in the selected European countries while comparing the official statistic data in terms of density of dentists, and the ratio between the number of medical technicians and assistants and the number of physicians. The conclusion of the study shows that Romania occupies the last place in terms of GDP funding (0.3 %vs. 0.85% in Germany) and registers the highest value for DMFT index at 12-year-olds (2.4 versus 0.7 in Sweden and the Great Britain). Despite all that, in Romania, the profession of a dentist is considered as sufficiently attractive, the proof being the indicator showing specialists’ density for 100,000 inhabitants, namely 83.5 in Romania, a value that is close to the European Union mean -88/100,000 inhabitants.

Objectives: The study aims at reviewing Myanmar's current situation to consider an improved oral health system and at promoting the oral health status of the Myanmar population. Materials and Methods: This review was conducted using the World Health Organization's (WHO's) six building blocks of the health system: oral health-care service delivery, dental workforce, oral health information system, essential medicine, health financing, and leadership and governance. The review was established on scientific articles and documents and information from reliable government and nongovernment organizations' websites. Results: According to the National Oral Health Survey (2016-2017), the prevalence rate of untreated caries in six-year-old Myanmar children (84.1%), and in the 35-44 and 65-74 age group (above 40%) is high, which reflects a low utilization of oral health-care services. The dentist to population ratio is approximately 1:16,000: There are around 5,000 dentists and 400 trained dental nurses in Myanmar, and only about 1,000 dentists serve in government sectors. The inequalities in dental health care are compounded by a limited dental workforce and inequality of dentists between the public and private sectors in Myanmar. In the last National Health Plan (NHP, 2006-2011), the Myanmar government's funding for required dental equipment and materials in each dental unit (around 5726 USD) has been considered inadequate. The current expenditure is not transparent. The other challenges are an insufficient supply of dental materials and instruments to all public dental sectors and a lack of oral health-care infrastructure. Conclusions: Such findings suggest a pressing need to address the effective oral health-care system and decree the specific goals for the Myanmar population's oral health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The study aims at reviewing Myanmar's current situation to consider an improved oral health system and at promoting the oral health status of the Myanmar population., Materials and Methods: This review was conducted using the World Health Organization's (WHO's) six building blocks of the health system: oral health-care service delivery, dental workforce, oral health information system, essential medicine, health financing, and leadership and governance. The review was established on scientific articles and documents and information from reliable government and nongovernment organizations' websites., Results: According to the National Oral Health Survey (2016-2017), the prevalence rate of untreated caries in six-year-old Myanmar children (84.1%), and in the 35-44 and 65-74 age group (above 40%) is high, which reflects a low utilization of oral health-care services. The dentist to population ratio is approximately 1:16,000: There are around 5,000 dentists and 400 trained dental nurses in Myanmar, and only about 1,000 dentists serve in government sectors. The inequalities in dental health care are compounded by a limited dental workforce and inequality of dentists between the public and private sectors in Myanmar. In the last National Health Plan (NHP, 2006-2011), the Myanmar government's funding for required dental equipment and materials in each dental unit (around 5726 USD) has been considered inadequate. The current expenditure is not transparent. The other challenges are an insufficient supply of dental materials and instruments to all public dental sectors and a lack of oral health-care infrastructure., Conclusions: Such findings suggest a pressing need to address the effective oral health-care system and decree the specific goals for the Myanmar population's oral health., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2021 Journal of International Society of Preventive and Community Dentistry.)

Purpose: Oral health remains a neglected area and its political priority on most national agendas is low. This analysis aimed to identify the political priority of oral health in Italy., Background: Italian public health services are decentralised at the regional level and are financed by both central and local authorities. Despite certain legally guaranteed public oral health services, access to oral health care seems to be inhomogeneous., Methods: Appraisal of the political priority of oral health in Italy uses the Political Power Framework as proposed by Shiffman and Smith., Results and Discussion: There is no clear mandate for leadership or coordination within the oral health sector, resulting in fragmentation and in dominance of the private sector. As a consequence, oral diseases are mainly addressed through a curative rather than a preventive public health approach. Current, systematic and representative data are lacking. Therefore, the real burden of oral diseases is unknown and thus cannot be addressed adequately. Evidence-based, cost-effective and sustainable population-wide public dental health interventions are not implemented on a large scale, and growing inequities in terms of access to care are not seen as a concern., Conclusion: Lack of relevant policies with a public health focus, absence of systematic oral health surveillance and limited access to care for large population groups are strong indicators that oral health is not a political priority. However, opportunities in the wider political environment could be used to facilitate analysis, discussion and change in order to improve political priority of oral health in Italy., (© 2014 FDI World Dental Federation.)