Five per cent of worldwide healthcare budgets are spent on caries, report estimates

The report, ‘Time to Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Addressing Inequalities in Oral Health’, looks at the urgent need for better alignment between policy, public health initiatives, payment systems, and clinical practice, to address the pressing challenges facing oral health.

Published by the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP), in collaboration with Economist Impact, it investigates periodontitis and caries, offering a holistic perspective on the global prevalence of oral diseases and the urgent need to address existing inequalities.

One of the major findings shows oral health is largely excluded amongst non-communicable diseases (NCDs), despite a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) resolution urging oral care integration into wider healthcare.