Salutogenic Approach to Oral Health Promotion: A New Paradigm in Dental Public Health

Oral Health Promotion (OHP) is one of the fundamental principles of the Ottawa Charter-an agreement signed for health promotion around the world.OHP has been studied though various public health theories, among which salutogenic theory has gained an important role in addressing the prevalence of oral health challenges and encouraging a multifaceted focus on preventing oral diseases that impact health and wellbeing.Salutogenic approach to oral health calls on Sense of Coherence (SOC) to identify possible ways to manage human behaviour, make right choices, prevent it from factors that harm, and create an environment favourable to good oral health and promotion oral health hygiene.To have a higher SOC means to have an ability to cope with stress, anxiety, poverty, disease.However, SOC is associated with the availability of resources-i.e.socio economic factors that determine our health based on the decisions, choices and actions individuals take.All these factors empower individuals towards manageability of their livelihood.To keep individual's SOC high, it is important to pay attention to the causes of their disease.The cause of oral disease is associated with the context of people's lives and changing the context of their lives could lead to higher SOC; hence, better oral health and wellbeing.