Oral health is integral to general health and supports individuals participating in society to achieve their potential. Yet oral diseases are the most widespread noncommunicable diseases affecting almost half of the world’s population (45% or 3.5 billion people worldwide) over the life course from early life to old age.

WHO’s Global oral health status report (GOHSR) provides the first-ever comprehensive picture of oral disease burden and highlights challenges and opportunities to accelerate progress towards universal coverage for oral health. This includes introducing oral health profiles of countries based on the latest available data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and global WHO surveys. It emphasizes the global impact of oral disease on our health and well-being and highlights stark inequalities, with a higher disease burden for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged population groups within and across societies.

The GOHSR is part of WHO’s series of data reports and an important milestone in the larger process of mobilizing political action and resources for oral health. Nearly 20 years after the publication of The World Oral Health Report 2003 and in alignment with the landmark  WHA74.5 resolution on oral health (2021), the GOHSR will serve as a reference for policy-makers and provide orientation for a wide range of stakeholders across different sectors; and guide the advocacy process towards better prioritization of oral health in global, regional and national contexts.