Climate Change and Its Impact on Oral Health

Introduction

The world is warming at an unprecedented rate. The Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC confirmed a 1.09°C rise in global surface temperature over the period 1901–2018, and the Global Risk Report 2024 warns that health impacts will intensify significantly over the next decade (Bhadauria et al., 2025). While cardiovascular, respiratory, and mental health consequences have received considerable attention, oral health implications remain underexplored—despite mounting evidence of significant effects. According to Shrivastava et al. (2025), climate change has produced a multifaceted impact on oral health, including the exacerbation of periodontal diseases, enamel erosion, and increased risk of oral cancers. Integrating oral health into broader climate adaptation strategies is no longer optional, but it is imperative.

Heat, Salivary Dysfunction, and Periodontal Disease

One of the most direct physiological links between climate change and oral disease runs through heat-induced dehydration. Rising temperatures cause diminished saliva production and xerostomia (Al-Rawi et al., 2024). Saliva is essential for neutralizing bacterial acids, remineralizing enamel, and inhibiting microbial proliferation. When salivary flow is compromised, the risk of dental caries, soft tissue inflammation, and periodontal disease increases substantially. Shrivastava et al. (2025) add that the resulting microbial overgrowth also raises the incidence of oral candidiasis, and that in drought-prone areas, reduced access to clean water prevents individuals from maintaining basic oral hygiene, compounding disease risk.

Air pollution, a co-product of the fossil fuel combustion driving climate change—poses an equally significant threat. Population-based cohort studies from Taiwan and China demonstrate that prolonged exposure to fine particulate matter independently elevates periodontal disease risk (Lin et al., 2021; Li et al., 2024). Pollutants such as NO₂, SO₂, and PM₂.₅ provoke systemic oxidative stress and inflammatory cytokine release, disrupting the immune defense against periodontal pathogens.

UV Radiation and Oral Cancer

Stratospheric ozone depletion has elevated ultraviolet radiation at the Earth’s surface with direct consequences for oral oncology. UVB exposure in oral tissues causes genotoxic DNA damage, triggers pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-8 (IL-8), and may reactivate dormant HPV—a known driver of oropharyngeal cancers (Al-Rawi et al., 2024). This dual mechanism amplifies malignant transformation risk in lip and oral mucosal tissues, and epidemiological data confirm that outdoor workers in high-UV regions face markedly elevated risk of lip squamous cell carcinoma (Tsagkaris et al., 2026).

Extreme Weather, Nutrition, and Early Childhood Caries

Hurricanes, floods, and droughts disrupt oral health through multiple channels. Contaminated water supplies following extreme weather events increase the risk of dental caries, periodontitis, and oral infections as hygiene infrastructure collapses (Bhadauria et al., 2025). Climate-driven agricultural disruption further reduces access to vitamins and minerals essential for oral tissue integrity; including vitamin D, calcium, and vitamin C which in return amplifying susceptibility to caries and developmental enamel defects (Shrivastava et al., 2025). A scoping review by Folayan et al. (2024) specifically links climate change to rising early childhood caries (ECC) prevalence, documenting how food insecurity and water quality degradation elevate ECC risk in vulnerable child populations. Although this finding is from a scoping review and more research evidences are required to support this finding.

Health Equity and the Dental Profession’s Role

Climate change amplifies pre-existing oral health disparities. Disadvantaged communities—already at higher risk for poor oral health—face greater barriers to dental care due to the financial and logistical disruptions of climate-related events (Bhadauria et al., 2025). Displacement, livelihood loss, and infrastructure damage further widen gaps that were entrenched before the climate crisis intensified. Any credible public health response must adopt an explicit equity lens.

The dental profession itself is both a contributor to environmental degradation—through energy-intensive practices, biomedical waste, and a carbon-heavy supply chain—and a potential champion of the response. Fleige and Schein (2024) emphasize the need for sustainable approaches within the field, including energy-efficient equipment, reduced single-use plastics, and digital dentistry. Fisher et al. (2024) advocate for advancing oral health within a One Health framework, recognizing that human, animal, and environmental health are inextricably linked. Dental professionals must educate patients and policymakers alike about the climate–oral health nexus.

Conclusion

Climate change represents a genuine dental public health crisis that threatens to reverse decades of preventive gains. Its impacts from xerostomia and periodontitis to oral cancers and early childhood caries fall hardest on already vulnerable communities, making equity a central concern.

The conclusion calls on dental public health to respond at three levels. At the population level, new climate-stratified surveillance systems and longitudinal research are needed to track how environmental exposures drive oral disease. At the community and systems level, oral health must be embedded in climate adaptation plans, disaster response frameworks, and water fluoridation must be protected in climate-vulnerable regions. At the policy and professional level, dental public health must engage in multisectoral climate dialogues using the One Health framework, while dental education reforms should produce graduates who understand climate change as a social determinant of oral health.

Underpinning all of this is a commitment to health equity ensuring that preventive resources and policy advocacy reach the communities that bear the greatest double burden of climate vulnerability and oral health disadvantage.

In short: dental public health is not merely a relevant stakeholder in the climate conversation it is an essential one, and must respond with scientific rigor, policy ambition, and an unwavering focus on equity.

References

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