Dental Health Without Borders (DHWB) is a Danish humanitarian association founded in 2002 with a view to improving oral health in low-income countries. The association thus arranges a number of projects in low-income countries and sends out a substantial number of voluntary dentists and dental assistants to do field work.

The projects of the association are financed by members, sponsors, private donations, and in some cases with the support of DANIDA’s Mini Grants.

DHWB received the Health Award 2006 of the Danish Association of Dentists for its efforts towards improving dental health.

Local partners

It is of the utmost importance that our projects build on partnerships with organisations in low-income countries – organisations with know-how of local conditions and specific needs. We arrange our activities in accordance with the values and rules and regulations of our partners. In this way DHWB ensures that our aid will reach the right target group and that our dentists and dental assistants doing field work abroad will experience top security.

Projects

Since 2002 DHWB has worked with projects aiming at improving dental health in Peru, Argentina, the Philippines, Cambodja, Mauritania, Rwanda and Vietnam – especially for children and adolescents. The projects include acute aid, toothbrush programmes, capacity development and advocacy.

The association also donates used dentist equipment – for example tools, dental chairs, and units – which according to requirements are sent to new users through local organisations. In the future DHWB wishes to extend its ongoing activities of targeted health promotion programmes and organisational development.

Sustainability

It is important to DHWB that the projects are not merely individual events that just solve acute problems. Instead we seek that our projects are integrated into local health policies so that acute problems are prevented, and general dental health as well as quality of life in the local community is improved.

The operating concept is that local organisations and cooperation partners gradually will take over the tasks inspired by the experiential learning obtained by working with DHWB projects. Our projects therefore attach great importance to practice and transfer of know-how to our local partners.

Dental health in low-income countries

At DHWB we experience on a daily basis that there is a substantial need of dental care and counselling in low-income countries – among many other acute needs. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dental diseases have globally become a recognized public health problem in the same way as for example cancer, diabetes, and cardiac diseases. In the high-income countries, dental diseases account for on an average 5-10 per cent of public health expenses. This constitutes a substantial financial burden that contemporary low-income countries are not able to carry.

The WHO report “Diet, nutrition and prevention of chronic diseases” can be downloaded from www.int/hpr/NPH/docs/who_fao_expert_report.pdf