It is necessary for all countries to have their oral health related strategies and programs based on proper evidence based oral health policies.One of the main phases of oral health policy formulation is oral health problem definition, analysis and specification .This research was part of the "evidence based oral public health policies of Iran" project ordered by Oral Health Bureau,Ministry of Health and Medical Education in 2010.The study conducted in order to develop the oral health policies of the country according to real oral health problems of the society.
Methods:
This qualitative research was conducted by collecting oral health problems of the country through expert opinions of the people in charge of oral health of the country and then analyzing them.The study was conducted by interviewing in site and also through sending an open questionnaire by e-mail.There were about 50 participants in this study.
Results:
In the first step after excluding repeated items ,about 200 common problems obtained and then scoring the problems again by an expert group, problems having priority were determined.Finally, 30 most important oral health problems collected according to consensus of expert group and scoring . Results were evaluated , analyzed and classified in six main areas which almost all the oral health problems of the country are subset of these main areas.The core themes of 6 areas were:1-Oral health structure 2-Supporting system 3-Care providing 4-Financial system 5-public knowledge and education 6-stewardship and governance.
Conclusions:
In Iran as other countries there are a variety of oral health problems and It is very important to consider these problems in program planning and decision making of policy makers.