The basic plan proclaims the promotion of oral health and the alleviation of inequality as its purpose, but exactly how inequality is to be improved and monitored is unclear, and there are no esignated indicators that can be used to evaluate oral health inequality. According to the results of a study published on our journal, there is oral health inequality across different communities, and the incidence of dental caries varies greatly across socioeconomic positions within a given community. Despite this fact, the action plan by the government is limited to the expansion of service and facility. Identifying the disadvantaged group in oral health and proposing a business plan suitable to the target population, executing the said business plan with the cooperation from the community, evaluating the results and improving the business plan based on these results may be too much to expect from our government. There are studies questioning whether the expansion of healthcare service in the context of the dominance of healthcare environment by the private sector is exacerbating oral health inequality. I can only hope that the first basic plan is well-executed and well-evaluated so that it may contribute to the improvement of national oral health.

I also hope that the vision of “better oral health with local community” is reflected in the tap water fluoride concentration management campaign that is being carried out with the help from local communities and leads the improvement of national oral health.

March 2018