Opportunities in oral health policy for Timor-Leste.
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Date
2016-09
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia
Abstract
Timor-Leste faces an urgent set of challenges in oral health. The impact of oral
diseases in terms of reduced quality of life and cost of treatment is considerable.
This paper reviews progress on policy recommendations since the National Oral
Health Survey in 2002, the first such national survey. Few proposals have been
implemented to date, owing to (i) lack of local support for the recommendations,
particularly on promotion of oral health; (ii) lack of financial and budgetary
provisions for oral health; (iii) lack of focus on services, human resources and
dental personnel; (iv) poor focus, design and implementation of policy and
planning in oral health; and (v) lack of transport to facilitate health-care workers’
access to remote areas. Based on this assessment, the present paper presents
a reconfigured set of policies and recommendations for oral health that take into
consideration the reasons for low uptake of previous guidance. Key priorities
are promotion of oral health, legislative interventions, education of the oralhealth
workforce, dental outreach programmes, targeted dental treatment, dental
infrastructure programmes, and research and evaluation. Interventions include
promotion of oral health for schoolchildren, salt fluoridation, fluoride toothpaste
and banning sweet stalls and use of tobacco and betel nut in, or near, schools.
Timor-Leste should strengthen the availability and quality of outreach programmes
for oral health. Dental therapists and dental nurses who can supply preventive
and atraumatic restorative dental care should continue to be trained, and the
planned dentistry school should be established. Ongoing research and evaluation
is needed to ensure that the approach being used in Timor-Leste is leading to
improved outcomes in oral health.
Description
Keywords
dental, developing economies, oral health, policy, prevention, Timor-Leste
Citation
WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health 2016;5(2): 164-173.