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Missed opportunities for improving oral health in rural Victoria: The role of municipal public health planning in improving oral health

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posted on 2022-06-28, 06:49 authored by Virginia Dickson-SwiftVirginia Dickson-Swift, Leonard CrocombeLeonard Crocombe
Issue addressed: People in rural areas have poorer oral health than their urban counterparts due to a range of factors. Local governments (LGs) have a key role in addressing health issues that impact on local communities. Methods: Publicly available oral health profile (OHP) data and Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plans (MPHWPs) (2017-2021) were downloaded from Dental Health Services Victoria and LG websites for 48 Victorian local government areas (LGAs) containing predominately rural areas. OHP data were collated to provide an overview of the oral health status of the communities and a content analysis of the MPHWPs undertaken. Results: Despite poor oral health in rural Victorian LGAs, oral health was not often in MPHWPs. Twenty of the MPHWPs had some mention of oral health but only four included specific actions or strategies that would be used to improve oral health. None of the plans contained any specific targets for action or details of evaluations that might be used to assess success. Conclusions: Poor oral health in rural Victorian communities continues to be demonstrated through local OHPs and is due to modifiable risk factors and poor access to water fluoridation. LGs have a key role to play in improving oral health through utilisation of OHP data in their MPHWPs. So what?: Oral health remains a low priority for LG action. This represents a missed opportunity for prioritising oral health prevention and promotion activities that improve oral health in rural Victoria.

History

Publication Date

2022-04-01

Journal

Health Promotion Journal of Australia

Volume

33

Issue

2

Pagination

10p. (p. 509-518)

Publisher

Wiley

ISSN

1036-1073

Rights Statement

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2021 The Authors. Health Promotion Journal of Australia published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australian Health Promotion Association