Barriers to the promotion of dental health in developing countries

Abstract

Health in developing countries is poor. Historically the trend towards ill health was initiated with the advent of slave trade and accelerated later by the colonial expansion of Europe. Dental health is no exception to this. There are many oral conditions which are functions of the poverty and undernutrition which are currently prevalent in developing countries. There are few human or physical resources available to meet these health needs. In most developing countries the dentist to population ratios are of the order of one dentist to 100,000 people or worse. In establishing dental health services in developing countries, there is a danger that attempts will be made to establish the same patterns of organization and to use the same technologies as those used in industrial nations. Because such organizations and technologies are often specific to certain social, political and economic situations their direct transfer for use under totally different circumstances frequently meets with failure. This caveat is particularly critical since there are clear differences between industrialized and developing countries in their patterns of dental disease.