# Unpacking the Oral Healthcare Landscape in India: A Qualitative Inquiry into Strengths, Shortfalls, and Future Directions Through the Lens of Public Health Dentists

## TL;DR

This study explores India's oral healthcare challenges and opportunities through interviews with public health dentists to guide future reforms.

## Contribution

The study provides a qualitative, context-specific analysis of India's oral health landscape from public health dentists' perspectives.

## Key findings

- Oral health inequalities persist in India despite public health initiatives.
- Strategies for rural dental workforce optimization were identified.
- A sustainable framework for equity-driven oral health reform is proposed.

## Abstract

The World Health Organization’s Bangkok Declaration, ‘No health without oral health,’ recognizes oral health as a global public health priority. Despite being largely preventable, oral diseases affect nearly half of the global population, and India mirrors this crisis while facing persistent systemic challenges. This qualitative study explores India’s oral healthcare landscape from the perspective of public health dentists to inform context-sensitive reforms. Thirty-one in-depth interviews were conducted with public health dentists from dental colleges registered with the Dental Council of India, recruited across six regions. Interviews were conducted online via MS Teams using a piloted interview guide and video-recorded with consent. Subsequently, the interviews were transcribed verbatim, anonymized, and qualitative data was analyzed using Atlas.ti, following reflexive thematic analysis. Analysis yielded four main themes: facets of oral health inequalities, dental public health initiatives, strategies to mobilize and optimize dental workforce in rural areas, and recommendations to optimize oral healthcare. This study offers contextually grounded yet globally relevant perspectives on oral health reform. By bridging local insights with international priorities, this study proposes a sustainable, equity-driven framework for transforming oral health systems while laying the foundation for future research and policy action aimed at achieving universal oral health coverage.