Pandemic Considerations on Essential Oral Health Care: Study

Coronavirus pandemic has unveiled the need for consensus on the definition of essential oral healthcare. The article "Pandemic considerations on essential oral healthcare" provides a layered model of essential oral healthcare, combining urgent and basic oral healthcare, as well as advanced and specialist oral healthcare. The findings of the study are published in the Journal of Dental Research.

Essential oral healthcare covers the various prevalent oral health problems but, by default, does not cover the full spectrum of possible interventions that modern dentistry could provide. A layered approach to the definition of essential oral healthcare allows for categorization and prioritization with available resources and needs in mind.

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‘Oral health care should be an integral component of a health care system's essential services. ’

This model also introduces a definition of basic oral healthcare and calls for oral healthcare to be acknowledged as an integral component of a healthcare system's essential services.

"There is a vital need for evidence-based criteria to define which dental interventions are to be included in each section of essential oral healthcare. A lack of clearly defined primary oral healthcare services leaves people at risk for physical, mental, and social harm," stated JDR Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Jakubovics.

"All stakeholders, including the academic, research, and clinical communities, should work together to respond to this call for a consensus."

Source: Medindia