Oral Health Promotion for Indigenous and Marginalized Populations

Oral diseases remain among the most common chronic conditions worldwide, yet their burden is distributed unequally. Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized populations continue to experience disproportionate levels of untreated dental caries, periodontal disease, tooth loss, oral pain, and reduced access to timely, preventive, and culturally appropriate care. These inequities are not solely the result of individual behaviors or geographic isolation, but are deeply rooted in the social determination of health, including historical processes such as colonization, structural racism, poverty, and exclusion. In this context, oral health must be understood as an integral component of universal health systems and primary health care, rather than as a fragmented or parallel field. Publicly funded, territorially organized systems have demonstrated their potential to reduce inequities through integrated, comprehensive, and continuous care. Strengthening the integration of oral health with in broader health care networks is therefore essential to advancing equitable and people-centered health systems.

This Research Topic aims to bring together innovative, community-driven, and multidisciplinary scholarship that reimagines oral health promotion for Indigenous and marginalized populations by centering cultural safety, community leadership, and responsiveness to local realities. It seeks to move beyond documenting disparities and instead foreground interventions that are strengths-based, co-designed, and grounded in Indigenous and community knowledge systems. Particular emphasis is placed on research that elevates community voices, sovereignty, and intergenerational knowledge, and on contributions that situate oral health within broader contexts such as food systems, housing, education, land, mobility, and social protection. Through this focus, the Research Topic aspires to challenge entrenched paradigms in oral health and stimulate the development of systems and services that are not only more effective but also more respectful, accountable, and inclusive.

To gather further insights into culturally grounded and community-led oral health promotion, submissions are encouraged that address a wide range of themes, with attention to both the boundaries and depth of the field. The scope includes oral health strategies for Indigenous communities, rural, low-income, migrant, and other marginalized groups across the life course, but does not extend to conventional biomedical treatment research.
We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• Community-led and co-designed oral health promotion models
• Indigenous methodologies and decolonizing approaches in oral health research and practice
• Rights-based, anti-racist, trauma-informed, and culturally safe oral health programs
• Oral health literacy and culturally grounded education strategies
• Maternal and child oral health in underserved communities
• School, family, and intergenerational promotion strategies
• Common risk factor approaches linking oral health with systemic conditions and determinants such as nutrition, food security, and chronic disease
• Innovations in delivery, including mobile clinics, teledentistry, virtual care, and integration into primary care
• Monitoring, evaluation, and governance approaches to strengthen accountability and equity in oral health systems
• Community health workers, peer-led models, and task sharing
• Evaluation of programs using implementation science and community-defined indicators
• Policy, financing, curriculum, and workforce reforms to address structural inequities

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
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: indigenous oral health, marginalized populations, oral health promotion, oral health equity, community-based oral health, culturally safe oral care, social determinants of oral health, oral health disparities

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.