It’s time to rethink oral health in Australia

Author: Dr Alexandra Jones, Co-Founder and Board Chair
This article was originally published in the Public Health Association of Australia’s blog, Intouch.

For most of my 30 years in dentistry, I’ve spent my time helping people one mouth at a time. I’ve been a clinician, a researcher, an academic, and a dentist in metropolitan areas and across regional and remote Australia.

Throughout this time, the more I saw of Australia’s oral health system, the clearer it became that it was leaving behind the people who needed it most. I also realised that the problems I managed to fix were still not changing the system.

As a dentist in regional and remote parts of the country, I see many who are experiencing incredible levels of illness, anxiety, and pain. In many cases, I see issues that could have been prevented with the right support, information and resources.

Imagine if there was time, a safe space, an opportunity to chat, and some accessible information to keep our teeth healthy?

Prevention is powerful. We already know what is effective: an understanding of how our mouths work, self-care, fluoride, nutrition, and access to health and wellbeing support services when people need them.

But there’s still an unacceptable level of preventable oral disease in Australia. Tooth decay is the most common chronic disease in the country, and it’s also one of the most preventable.

Every year, more than 80,000 Australians are hospitalised for preventable dental conditions. Around 750,000 GP visits are for oral problems. Only 2 per cent of the health budget is spent on public health, and oral health gets only a sliver of that.

The way oral health care is delivered in Australia remains fragmented, inequitable, and overly focused on treatment rather than prevention.

But what if our governments invested in prevention and early intervention so that people have the understanding to look after their teeth and prevent disease?

What if our health system expanded access to dental care for people who need it most, integrated oral health into primary care systems, and supported culturally safe, community-led services?

What if we stopped pointing fingers, and started looking at practical, supportive solutions to get to the root causes of people’s oral health issues?

The Australian Government is establishing a new National Oral Health Plan (2025–2034) – an opportunity to make a change. But the Plan must focus on prevention and equity, as well as treatment.

The Plan gives us the chance to embed oral health care into the broader health system, and it can chart a path towards thinking of oral health along a continuum of care, starting with prevention.

When it comes to sun safety, we’re taught to slip, slop, slap, seek and slide.

Schools are given funding to build shelters. UV ratings are shared through school apps and children are told that if they don’t have a hat, they need to seek shelter. You just need to walk across beaches in Australia to see the number of sun shelters. Sustained health promotion has had positive effects on our behaviours.

When it comes to teeth, we were taught to brush our teeth twice a day when we were children, but we were not taught of the steps to protect our mouths. For example, drinking water, resting our mouth between eating so that it doesn’t become too acidic, or that having fruits and vegetables is as important for our mouths as it is for the rest of our body.

We should know that a black spot on our teeth might not necessarily be a bad thing, what to do if we have a sore jaw from clenching and grinding, or the different ways our gums can behave.

Oral health promotion and support needs to be built into the services people already use: GP clinics, aged care, schools, and community organisations.

We could save millions of dollars, and a lot of pain.

At Friends of Really Excellent Dentistry, we are seeking to play a role in this. We’re developing digital oral health tools, resources and platforms to make preventive oral health education accessible anywhere, anytime.

We want to ensure individuals, health care and community service professionals have the information and tools they need to advance the oral health of all Australians.

We don’t need to wait for a crisis to think about our oral health. We already have the evidence and technology to improve it. What’s missing is the commitment to act.

The new National Oral Health Plan is our chance to stop patching up old policies and start building something better – a system that focuses on prevention and equity, and includes oral health as part of our broader health system.