Research into the quality of oral care receives support

Oral health has received little attention in health policy so far, according to a recent report by the World Health Organization

Stefan Listel of Radbodomic will lead an international research project. With a €5 million grant from the Horizon Europe programme, he and his partners from seven countries will work to improve the quality of oral care, especially for the poor and vulnerable in society. The DELIVER project will lead to more shared solutions to problems, better access to affordable oral care for all and more attention to effective prevention.

Oral health has not yet received much attention in health policy, according to a recent report by the World Health Organization. Oral diseases are among the three most costly diseases, affecting 3.5 billion people worldwide, especially the poorest and most vulnerable populations. It is often difficult for low-income citizens to obtain basic oral care, mainly for financial reasons. This leads to pain and sometimes life-threatening abscesses, and thus to high costs of treatment to society. Improving access to affordable oral care and more attention to effective prevention could largely prevent such a large burden of disease and unnecessary treatment costs.

ivory tower
“More attention to people who do not currently have access to oral care is an important step,” says Stefan Listel, professor of oral care quality and safety at Radbodomic. But if we want to solve problems, we also need a constructive dialogue between citizens, oral care professionals, health insurance companies and policymakers. They identify priority options for improving the quality of oral care. What doesn’t work is the saying from the academic ivory tower that something else has to be done. We want to know with whom and how we can best start the conversation. Various methods have been developed for the participation of all concerned, but they have not yet been systematically applied in oral care.

Response
Listel and its project partners will receive €5 million from the European Commission and will improve and improve the quality of oral care. Listl: “Together with stakeholders, we will first identify indicators with which we can monitor the quality of oral care, both at the oral care practice level and at the population level. We will then use case studies to test how we can apply these indicators in different situations to improve the quality of oral care. From In doing so, we look at how patient feedback can contribute to thinking by oral care professionals and how we can properly shape the conversation about access to oral care for poorer populations.We will also look at how health policy can better take into account the needs Diverse for different population groups.

The DELIVER project is a collaboration with partners from Germany, Denmark, England, Malta, Portugal and Sweden. The total budget of the project is 5 million euros, of which 1.2 million is earmarked for research at Radboudumc. The project will run from 2022 to 2026.