Oral hygiene, dental caries, and periodontal status in the migrant population. A systematic review, a 10-year study

Abstract

A migrant is a person who moves away from his or her place of habitual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons. Migrant population presents significant challenges in maintaining optimal oral health, because of the limitation in access to a balanced diet, excessive consumption of processed foods or those with a high percentage of sugars, as well as the cost of acquiring hygiene items such as toothbrushes or toothpaste, coupled with the lack of access to public services, they comprise a highly vulnerable population to developing oral disease. Objective. This study aimed to identify and synthesize the oral health characteristics of migrant populations as reported in the literature. A search was conducted for articles that included studies that had some type of report on the oral health status of a migrant population. A bibliographic search was performed in the PubMed, ScienceDirect and Scopus databases from 2016 to 2025 using the keywords: “immigrants”, “emigration”, “oral health”, “dental caries” and “periodontal disease”. To perform the risk of bias analysis, the Joanna Briggs Institute tool for cross-sectional studies was used. Results