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Scoping review reveals diverse service and advocacy roles of nongovernmental organizations in underserved communities, highlighting their capacity to reduce global oral health disparities.
INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: The study aimed to explore nongovernmental organizations' (NGOs') roles in promoting oral health for different targeted beneficiaries, and to study NGO's evaluation methods to assess the impact and performance of their projects. METHODS: This study was a scoping review with thematic analysis. A literature search was conducted in the databases Medline, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect. Publications reporting on NGO-related oral health promotions and activities were included in this review. A thematic framework was used to synthesize the literature according to NGOs' roles, targeted beneficiaries, and evaluation measures. RESULTS: A total of 1363 references were identified by literature search, and 23 articles were included in this review. It was found that NGOs served various targeted beneficiaries, especially disadvantaged groups, such as children, homeless people, and older adults in developing countries and lower-income societies. NGOs functioned in various roles, 'professional doctors', 'service providers', 'public educators', 'proactive volunteers', 'industry trainers', 'active advocates', 'field researchers', and 'potential funder', to provide both direct and indirect services. Project evaluations were conducted regarding programme-oriented, beneficiary-oriented, and organization-oriented evaluations with a mixed-method design. CONCLUSION: NGOs play an active role in promoting and improving people's oral health and well-being by providing various services and activities. The multifaceted involvement of NGOs highlights their importance in improving oral health outcomes and addressing oral health disparities in broad community settings. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This review shows a landscape view of the various roles of NGOs in oral health promotion. It is expected to strengthen the power of NGOs to implement a wide range of activities by collaborating across sectors and engaging various stakeholders. This integrated approach will foster a holistic and impactful strategy for promoting oral health, ultimately leading to improved oral health outcomes and overall well-being.
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Peng et al. (2025) studied this question.
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