'Toothless’—the absence of political priority for oral health: a case study of Ireland 1994–2021

BMC Oral Health

Table 1 An overview of documents incorporated in analysis

Document type	Number (n)
Policy documents¹	14
Commissioned reports²	18
Health strategies³	9
Health service documents⁴	19
Non-governmental reports/strategies⁵	7
Legislation⁶	5
Reports of epidemiological surveys⁷	7
Parliamentary papers⁸
Parliamentary questions	33
Presentations to parliamentary committees	4
Clinical guidelines⁹	4
Academic and grey literature¹⁰	5
Total	n = 125

¹Policy document: any publication with stated governmental policy positions including general and oral health policies, published and unpublished, along with associated policy frameworks, implementation, and action plans
²Commissioned report: any document commissioned by government including reports from external bodies and institutions along with inter departmental requests
³Health strategy: any document detailing steps and strategic intent by government, but not as actual government policy, for example health department statements of strategy
⁴Health service documents: any document outlining specific health and social service delivery, objectives, resources, actions, and outputs, primarily including HSE National Service plans
⁵Non-governmental reports/strategies: any relevant report/strategy published by a non-government affiliated organisation
⁶Legislation: relevant legal acts and regulations
⁷Parliamentary question: any relevant question raised by a member of parliament provided with an oral or written response
⁸Presentation to parliamentary committee: any evidence verbal or written presented to relevant governmental committees
⁹Clinical guidelines: a series of evidence-based guidelines for those planning and providing dental services for children in Ireland
¹⁰Academic and grey literature: relevant academic and grey literature used to enhance contextual nuance of included documents

ISSN: 1472-6831