The Case for Implementation Science in Global Oral Health

The World Health Organisation Resolution on Oral Health, the WHO Global Strategy and Action Plan on Oral Health 2023–2030, and the Bangkok Declaration of 2024 together mark an unprecedented convergence of global policy commitment, professional responsibility, and opportunity for oral health system reform. These instruments position oral health within the broader agendas of noncommunicable disease, primary health care, Sustainable Development Goal 3, and universal health coverage, and call for oral health systems that are integrated, prevention-oriented, equitable, accountable, and environmentally sustainable. The principal challenge now is implementation: translating these commitments into sustained action across diverse health system contexts. This review argues that implementation science provides the methodological and strategic foundation required to translate global oral health policy into sustained action. By distinguishing between evidence-based interventions and the strategies needed to adopt, adapt, scale, sustain, and, where necessary, de-implement them, implementation science can bridge the persistent evidence–practice gap in dentistry. It offers tools for strengthening governance, integrating oral health into primary health care, reallocating resources away from low-value care, embedding implementation outcomes in monitoring systems, accelerating translation through hybrid effectiveness–implementation designs, and ensuring that equity is measured rather than merely asserted. Advancing universal health coverage for oral health by 2030, requires context-sensitive, evidence-informed, and accountable execution. Implementation science should therefore be regarded as a core discipline for transforming global oral health policy into practice.