Introduction: The oral health care systems worldwide can be described by policy, organization, payment mechanisms and outcomes (Andersen et al 1970).
Objective: This paper aims to present data describing the oral health systems (OHS) of India and Nigeria
Methods: A literature search was carried out on the WHO. PUBMED was searched for information on policies, structure, financing, human resources and oral health status of the oral health system of each country.
Results: The oral health policies are not integrated in the national health policies in both countries. The structures of the oral health systems in both countries are hierarchical and bureaucratic in which policy and implementation decisions are made centrally. The total health expenditure as percentage of the GDP in India is 5.1% compared with Nigeria is 3.4% (WHO 2001). Comparing human resourcing, the ratio of dentist to the population is 1: 36538 in India in 2000, and 1: 33000 in Nigeria in 1992. In India there are 122 dental schools with yearly output of 5600, after five years of dental training, whilst in Nigeria there are four dental schools with an annual output of around 100 dentists after six years of training. Caries prevalence data, collected more than ten years ago, were from small studies focussing on sites that may not be representative of the whole country. Thirty six percent and 30% of 12 year-olds in India and Nigeria have experienced caries in 1993 and 1991 respectively. The mean DMFT for 12 year-olds was 0.86 in India, and 0.7 in Nigeria.
Conclusion: Up-to-date oral health status and systems data collected in a systematic manner are needed to allow comparison of the Indian and Nigerian OHS. Whilst both systems are similar in some aspects, they diverged in levels of expenditure. Reasons for differences need further exploration.