Oral health and Primary Health Care Has the goal been achieved yet? The UNRWA case

Aim - In September 1978 the Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC) was signed by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund and recognized as the leading way to the achievement of the ambitious goal of “Health for All by the year 2000”. The message from Alma Ata echoed worldwide as revolutionary: inadequate and unequal health care was economically, socially and politically unacceptable. The aim of this study is to provide recommendations to address oral health according to PHC and to describe a realistic model. Methods - The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) oral health services were evaluated in Lebanon, Jordan and Syrian Arabic Republic and analyzed according to PHC. Results - Today UNRWA oral health services face an increasing demand for oral care among refugees and thus they need to be effective and sustainable. UNRWA efforts towards the strengthening of its public health programme together with its commitment to PHC are both very important and valuable resources in meeting the goal of good health and general well being for Palestine Refugees. Conclusions - Oral health is strictly connected to general health. PHC is an approach to health that goes far behind from the paradigm health-illness by recognizing determinants of health. Oral interventions rarely follow PHC worldwide. The global problem lays in the approach to oral health. The overall answer is choice.