28 | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cdoe Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 2023;51:28–35. 1 | INTRODUCTION An individual's ability to access oral health care and maintain healthy teeth and gums is as much a function of one's ability to pay for care as it is dependent upon where one lives. Whether one is in the U.S. south, the global south or a rural community, oral health is a func- tion of both place and privilege. While the history and conditions of countries may vary, health inequity is not driven by biology and genetics but by systems, structures and policies that support and entrench hierarchies among social groups. People with oral health needs are often located in cities and areas where oral health providers maintain a profitable business for their practice. 1 The ability of an individual and population to have optimal oral health is thus conditioned upon where people live, the available resources, and how easy or difficult it is to make healthy choices. 2 If access to dental providers is determined by one's ability Received: 13 January 2022 | Revised: 7 November 2022 | Accepted: 16 November 2022 DOI: 10.1111/cdoe.12822 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Conceptualizing inequities and oppression in oral health research Eleanor Fleming 1 | João L. Bastos 2 | Lisa Jamieson 3 | Roger K. Celeste 4 | Sarah E. Raskin 5 | Noha Gomaa 6 | Colman McGrath 7 | Tamanna Tiwari 8 Eleanor Fleming and João Luiz Bastos are co-first authors. 1 University of Maryland School of Dentistry, Baltimore, USA 2 Graduate Program in Public Health, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil 3 Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia 4 Department of Preventive and Social Dentistry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil 5 iCubed Initiative Oral Health Core, Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia, USA 6 Oral Diagnostic Sciences, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, London, Canada 7 Applied Oral Sciences & Community Dental Care, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong 8 School of Dental Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, USA Correspondence Tamanna Tiwari, School of Dental Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, 13065 East 17th Avenue, Aurora, CO 80045, USA. Email: tamanna.tiwari@cuanschutz.edu Abstract Major sociohistorical processes have profound effects on oral health, with impacts experienced through structural oppression manifested in policies and practices across the lifespan. Structural oppression drives oral health inequities and impacts population-level oral health. In this global perspective paper, we challenge old as- sumptions about oral health inequities, address misleading conceptualizations in their description and operation and reframe oral health through the lens of intersecting systems of oppression. Furthermore, we emphasize the need for oral health research- ers to explore causal pathways through which oppression harms oral health and en- gage in social science concepts to understand the root causes of oral health inequities fully. Finally, we call on policymakers, dental scholars and decision makers to consider health equity in all policies and to take a systems-oriented approach to effectively address oral health inequities. KEYWORDS access to oral health, intersectionality, oppression, oral health inequities © 2023 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 16000528, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdoe.12822 by CAPES, Wiley Online Library on [19/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License