Oral Health Promotion Across the Life Course: Strategies, Policies, and Practices for Equity and Sustainability

Despite well-established links between oral health and general health, oral health promotion remains fragmented and inadequately integrated into broader health systems. This disconnect results in missed opportunities for prevention, perpetuates inequities, and hinders population-level gains across the life course. There is an urgent and recognized need for research that moves beyond conceptual endorsement of “life-course approaches” to provide actionable evidence and frameworks for implementation.

Central Research Problem:
How can oral health be systematically and equitably promoted throughout all stages of life by integrating prevention and care into existing health systems, in order to reduce disease, enhance function, and improve quality of life across populations?

This Research Topic seeks to:
• Define and evaluate effective, scalable interventions for oral health at each key stage of life, from preconception through older age.
• Clarify the mechanisms linking specific life stages—such as the impact of maternal oral health on childhood outcomes and the influence of midlife risks on later-life function.
• Map out and assess policy, service, and care frameworks that ensure continuity, integration, and equity in oral health promotion.

We invite research that goes beyond theoretical discussion, providing robust empirical evidence, concrete intervention models, and practical policy insights. Of particular interest are studies that:

• Connect oral health to broader health and social care agendas (e.g., NCD prevention, maternal-child health, healthy aging).
• Measure real-world outcomes such as quality of life, healthy longevity, and cost-effectiveness.
• Address system-level barriers and facilitators to integrated, equitable, and sustainable oral health strategies.

Contribution Types and Themes:
We welcome contributions including, but not limited to:

• Life-stage-targeted interventions (e.g., caries prevention in early childhood, adolescent oral health literacy, workplace/community programs, oral frailty prevention, care integration across ages).
• Policy and financing models supporting integrative and continuous oral health care.
• Workforce and interprofessional innovations to deliver oral health within general health systems.
• Approaches addressing social determinants and geographic disparities in oral health.
• Digital, data-driven tools for surveillance, risk stratification, and precision prevention.
• Implementation science and quality improvement methodologies to evaluate and scale up effective strategies.

By collecting evidence and best practices from diverse settings, this Research Topic aims to translate life-course principles into practical, scalable solutions - turning integration, prevention, and equity from aspiration into reality. We seek to inform policy, shape care delivery, and catalyze global action to promote oral health across generations.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: oral health promotion, life-course approach, health equity, preventive dentistry, integrated care, oral health policy, community oral health, sustainable healthcare

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.