Advancing India's oral health agenda: policy, practice and promise

Oral health remains inadequately prioritised in India despite being largely preventable and substantial evidence pointing out that oral diseases share common behavioural, environmental, and commercial determinants with other major non-communicable diseases.1, 2, 3, 4 There is significant evidence that embedding oral health promotion, oral cancer screening, tobacco cessation, early diagnosis, preventive care, and referral pathways within primary healthcare would not only improve access but also advance the broader goals of Universal Health Coverage.5, 6, 7 The WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan establishes ambitious targets for 2030, including integrating oral health into primary healthcare, expanding essential oral health services to almost 80% of the population, development and implementation of national oral health policies, and improving surveillance and monitoring of oral health within UHC frameworks.⁸ In this context, India faces an unique opportunity to strengthen its oral health system. The forthcoming Oral Health India Summit on the 20th of July 2026, jointly organised by the Institute of Public Health (IPH) and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) serves as a timely platform to call attention to this issue.

In spite of oral health being recognized as a public health priority under the National Oral Health Programme, oral healthcare remains predominantly treatment-oriented and is characterised by high out-of-pocket expenditure. Workforce maldistribution, limited public-sector capacity, fragmented governance, inadequate financing, weak surveillance systems, and insufficient integration within comprehensive primary healthcare continue to constrain equitable access, particularly for rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.^9,10 These challenges reflect not only resource constraints but also weaknesses in agenda-setting processes, cross-sectoral coordination, and policy implementation capacity. Though India has been partially able to generate adequate surveillance and epidemiological evidence describing the burden and distribution of oral diseases, considerably less evidence exists on how oral health policies can be operationalized, adapted, and sustained across health system contexts and this puts in jeopardy the ability to work towards and reach the targets set for 2030.9, 10, 11

India's ongoing health sector reforms provide a favourable political context for this transition. Ayushman Bharat, the Government of India's flagship public healthcare scheme, emphasises comprehensive primary healthcare through Health and Wellness Centres and the expansion of financial protection. This existing platform offers an important avenue for integrating essential oral health services alongside NCD prevention and management.¹² Achieving this integration will require stronger collaboration across health programmes, greater investment in prevention, and the development of robust monitoring frameworks aligned with the WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan.^8,13

The forthcoming Oral Health India Summit, is a national-level stakeholders’ meeting that will highlight, deliberate and accelerate progress on this critical gap by convening, for the first time in India, a diverse group of stakeholders to collectively examine oral health agenda-setting processes and implications for policy. Though there are ongoing efforts across the dental and public health fraternity, this one stands out in that a business management school is collaborating with a public health institute to highlight and call attention to the cause. Through discussing the evidence, generating expert insights and stakeholder perceptions, this Summit will provide a neutral, evidence-informed platform for shared intent and continuing dialogue to establish a clear national implementation agenda for oral health by bringing together policymakers, researchers, clinicians, public health practitioners, professional bodies, and civil society.

Critical themes will be deliberated through national-level expert panels on - oral health policy and agenda setting; dental workforce; capacity building, distribution, and regulation; integration and implementation of oral health in primary health care; and the commercial determinants of oral health: global and national oral health policy. The expected outcomes of the summit proceedings are–a jointly developed policy brief targeting national and state-level decision-makers in India, establishment of an oral health policy working group, provision of capacity-building outputs (training, mentoring, collaborative publications) and directions for follow-on research and academic exchange proposals.

Such broad collaborative efforts are critical if India is to translate global commitments into measurable health gains. By aiming to situate oral health within NCDs and health systems discourse, this initiative aims to generate transferable learnings in India and to lay the foundation for a sustained oral health policy that combines research, action and practice. India will have to deliver oral health in an equitable, preventive, and people-centred mode at scale. As the global oral health agenda enters the implementation phase, India can now demonstrate regional leadership and political commitment by embedding oral health within UHC and health systems. This will involve situating oral health within UHC frameworks that guarantee reliable oral healthcare for the population through active delivery mechanisms to involve the community and cater to underserved populations. By working towards the WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan and embedding oral health within the primary care component of universal health coverage India can move towards achieving health equity and universal access.

Contributors

The paper was conceptualised by Allen Prabhaker Ugargol (APU) in discussion with all the authors. The final draft was reviewed by all authors and edited by Rajeev Basapathy Rudrappa (RBR), Aastha Thomas (AT), Aswathy Ram (AR), Lathadevi Chilgod (LC), Pragati Hebbar (PH), Ramya Krishna Boddicherla Mahesh Kumar (RKBMK), Raveena Raveendran (RR), and Manu Raj Mathur (MRM). All authors commented on a pre-final version of the draft, read and approved it.

Declaration of interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.