Oral Health Status, Oral Health Behaviours and Oral Health Care Utilisation Among Migrants Residing in Europe: A Systematic Review

Amandeep Pabbla*, Denise Duijster, Alice Grasveld, Caroline Sekundo, Charles Agyemang, Geert van der Heijden

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalReview articleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

As the reported data on oral health status among the migrants in Europe is fragmented, we systematically reviewed the published literature on the oral health status, behaviours and care utilisation among migrants residing in Europe. For this, we retrieved publications from PubMed and EMBASE, supplemented by manual citation screening and grey literature search on Google scholars. Two independent reviewers screened the studies, extracted data and critically appraised the publications. A total of 69 studies included showed higher dental caries among migrant children. But some studies on adolescents and adults reported similar or even better oral health among migrants compared to the host population, while other reported the opposite. Poor oral health behaviours were generally reported among the migrants and they frequently made use of emergency service utilisation compared to the host population. We shed light on the gaps in dental literature and make some recommendations for the future.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)373-388
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of immigrant and minority health
Volume23
Issue number2
Early online date19 Jul 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Europe
  • Migrants
  • Oral health behaviours
  • Oral health care utilisation
  • Oral health status

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