Abstract
Health care system development had been the global basic health need goals of world population
by the year 2000. Signatory countries to the World Health Organization agreed that the primary health
care principles were the key for the development. However, current oral health data of Thai population
show gaps to the expected goal even by 2020. This article is a review of documents related to the
primary health care, aiming to understand the original intentions of this principle together with analyzing
oral health situation of Thai population, then synthesizing challenges in the overall development of oral
health care and proposing recommendations for improving the oral health service system to ensure oral
health fairness. Three challenges are presented; 1) The oral health goals should be clarified with agreement
among stakeholders including individuals who own their oral health, 2) Revising the six building block
components of the health system and managing these driving components towards the goals, and
3) Managing other oral health determinant factors not limited to the utilization of oral health service
delivery. In the end, three recommendations are proposed; 1) The long-term oral health goals review and
revision together with service delivery system goals through periodic monitoring, 2) Integrating these
long-term goals with the current policy practice of the Ministry of Public Health (the service plan, the
regional health, and the district health system driving forces), and 3) Providing oral health personnel with
appropriate competencies for the future oral health system, including planning skill, dental practitioner
skill, and the coordination skill.
