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: Twenty-one studies were selected, nine studies were conducted on migrants of multiple nationalities, in 10 studies (45.4%), oral health characteristics were self-reported by participants, whereas in 11 studies (54.6%), assessments were conducted by a qualified examiner. Based on the reported caries indices, caries experience among the studied populations ranged from 5.5 to 30.9 affected teeth, Regarding the presence of periodontal disease, seven studies reported findings ranging from gingival bleeding to positive results indicating the loss of dental support, and oral lesions were only reviewed in two studies, the most common lesions reported were leukoplakia and fibrous lesions.

Conclusion: The evidence suggests that migrants try to maintain the custom of having a diet as natural as possible, but this may be diminished by the economic factor or by a process of resilience. The migrant individuals are characterized by limited access to health services, coupled with their limited economic resources, which makes them susceptible to developing oral diseases. This is corroborated by the high incidence of dental caries and bleeding gums. One of the main limitations of the study was the period (2016-2025) that was selected, which does not represent the totality of what has been published on the subject.