New Public Health Approach to Oral Health Care Accessibility in a Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Poor access to oral healthcare has continually been a major setback to achieving universal oral healthcare. And this is more important in low-to-medium-income communities where a significant portion of the populations cannot afford oral treatments.  This situation has contributed to the increased prevalence of oral health diseases. Historically, pandemics have been known to cause a  further reduction in access to healthcare with the resultant effects of a burgeoning burden of oral diseases. This review article aims at  describing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on access to population-based dental care and to suggest a new approach to mitigating the  effects of lockdown, which practically hinders populations’ access to care during pandemics. These are with a view to improving pandemic preparedness and enhancing population access to oral healthcare in times of restrictions.

Areas covered: This is a review  article that focused on COVID-19 pandemic and how it impacted access to oral healthcare. The article also highlighted the new  approaches that could be adopted to consistently make oral healthcare obtainable by all despite physical restrictions. Literature searches  of key terms were carried out using PubMed and Google Scholar.

Expert opinion: So much has been known about the impact of reduced  access to oral healthcare. However, ideas on service modification and/or adoption of new methods of improving populationbased access  to oral care, especially during periods of global health crises have not been proposed.