‘From Draft to Delivery’: Dental Professionals as the Implementation Engine of India’s Oral Health Policy: A Narrative Review.

Author

Dr. B. LakshmanaRao, Dr. Vikas Punia , Dr. V. Dal Singh , Dr. K. Sridevi , Dr. M. Vaishnavi Devi


Abstract

 Background Oral diseases are among the most prevalent non-communicable conditions in India, yet oral health has historically occupied a marginal place in national health policy. A national oral health policy was first drafted by the Indian Dental Association in 1986 and accepted in principle in 1995, but a stand-alone, notified policy still does not exist; the Draft National Oral Health Policy circulated in February 2021 remains unfinalised.1,2,20

Aim To describe the present architecture of India’s oral health policy framework—global commitments, national policy instruments, the National Oral Health Programme (NOHP), primary-care integration through Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, convergent programmes and the new regulatory order under the National Dental Commission Act, 2023—and to define the operational roles of dental clinicians and dental institutions in implementing it.

Key content The framework is best understood as a six-tier cascade (global → national policy → national programme → state/district → primary care → community). Implementation is constrained by the absence of a notified policy, the lack of a formal NOHP evaluation, missing ring-fenced budgets, weak surveillance, an urban–rural workforce maldistribution and a persistent education-to-practice gap. A five-role model (provider, preventer, screener/gatekeeper, educator/trainer, researcher/advocate) is proposed to locate the contributions of clinicians at the chairside and of institutions at system scale.

Conclusion Policy will not be implemented by the Ministry alone. With more than three lakh dentists and over 300 dental colleges, the profession is the de facto delivery system for oral health in India; aligning its everyday clinical, teaching and research activity with NOHP and WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan (GOHAP) targets is the most realistic route to universal oral health coverage by 2030.



Keywords

Oral health policy; National Oral Health Programme; Draft National Oral Health Policy 2021; GOHAP 2023–2030; Dental institutions; Policy implementation.



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References


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