Children’s right to oral health
A focus on rights can help improve children’s oral health globally
The recently proposed Global Oral Health Action Plan (2023-2030) (GOHAP) is a great milestone in the historical lack of incorporation of oral health in global policies and strategies. Yet, we flag the importance of a child rights approach, which is currently missing in the Action Plan. A child rights approach to oral health has four additional benefits as it: 1) adds weight to lifestyle-related risk factors alongside access to oral healthcare; 2) emphasizes the need to address the persistence into later life of unhealthy habits adopted during childhood; 3) translates children’s rights into legally binding and highly authoritative obligations, based on which governments are to regulate sugars, disseminate information about hygiene practices, offer access to fluoride (an essential medicine), and design an oral healthcare system; 4) offers accountability mechanisms and thereby enforces the implementation of the GOHAP in domestic settings.
MOLLET Sarienten;
TAYLOR Greig;
TOEBES Brigit;
2024-11-08
BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP
JRC133164
1756-1833 (online),
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082022,
https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj-2024-082022,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC133164,
10.1136/bmj-2024-082022 (online),
Additional supporting files
| File name | Description | File type | |
|---|
