Special Episode: Elevating Oral Health on the Global Agenda

Podcast: This Week in Global Development
Hosts: Devex Team (Raj Kumar as A)
Guests:

• Anil Soni, CEO of WHO Foundation (C)
• Eisha Gupta, Lead of Public Health and Social Impact, Colgate Palmolive (B)
  Date/Location: February 3, 2026, Davos, Switzerland

Episode Overview

This special edition, recorded at Davos and sponsored by Colgate Palmolive, spotlights an under-addressed but critical aspect of global health: oral health. Raj Kumar hosts a conversation with Anil Soni and Eisha Gupta as they announce a landmark partnership between Colgate Palmolive and the WHO Foundation, aiming to elevate oral health on the global agenda and integrate it with broader public health initiatives.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Is Oral Health Important?

• Prevalence and Impact: Oral health issues affect 3.7 billion people—making it the world's most common non-communicable disease (NCD) [01:01].

  • “People just don't know that … it is actually linked and has the same risk factors as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes.” – Eisha Gupta [01:10]
  • Oral health’s lack of visibility is due to its separation from systemic health—in reality, the mouth is “the gateway to the rest of our body.”

• Changing the Narrative: Recent years have seen greater recognition of oral health as core, not peripheral, to overall wellbeing.

  • “Oral health is not marginal. It's actually the starting point for a lot of other health conditions.” – Anil Soni [01:53]

2. Challenges to Elevating Oral Health

• Historic Neglect: Focus has long been on diseases with direct morbidity/mortality; oral health consequences are often indirect but crucial [02:36].
  • “You don't die of oral health necessarily. You die of diseases that arise from poor oral health.” – Anil Soni [02:41]
• Resource Limitations: With health funding cuts, integrating oral health into primary care brings better value.
  • “It's actually where you have great bang for the buck because you're intervening early …” – Anil Soni [02:56]

3. Announcement: The New Partnership

• Partnership Details: First multi-year collaboration between Colgate Palmolive and WHO Foundation, supporting WHO’s oral health scaling efforts [03:25–03:44].

  • “We're supporting the WHO's efforts to scale and elevate oral health. … The first time our company has signed a multi year partnership like this with a multilateral agency.” – Eisha Gupta [03:29]

• Strategic Rationale: Multistakeholder alliance echoes successful models from vaccines and infectious disease.

  • “We need to do a lot more of that across more health conditions.” – Anil Soni [03:50]
  • “The WHO Foundation was created five years ago to … broaden the tent of partnership, to broaden the tent of engagement.” – Anil Soni [04:20]

4. What Will the Partnership Do? Three Pillars

• a. Oral Health Education and Programming:

  • Colgate's Bright Smiles, Bright Futures Program operates in 100+ countries, reaching over 2 billion children and families [05:05–05:28].
  • “We have nonprofits to do the last mile … work with community health workers, nurses … ministries of health and education.” – Eisha Gupta [05:29]
  • Successful model: Philippines’ integration of oral health into the Universal Health Coverage agenda.

• b. Policy and Advocacy:

  • Support WHO in developing evidence-based technical guidance for member states.
  • “How can you recognize that oral health is an NCD, it should be tied to universal healthcare … integrate it into your existing health infrastructure and systems.” – Eisha Gupta [08:04]

• c. Elevation on the Global Health Agenda:

  • Continuous advocacy to make oral health an integral component of overall health [08:41].
  • “Elevating oral health on the broader public health agenda … is integral to overall health.” – Eisha Gupta [08:28]

5. Integrating Oral Health into Primary Care

• Systemic Change Needed: Given funding constraints, standalone oral health “verticals” aren’t possible; integration into primary care is essential [06:36].
  • “How do we treat oral health as public health and … interventions into the primary care engagement?” – Anil Soni [07:07]
  • Focus on self-care and decentralized care as crucial strategies.

6. Innovation and Evidence

• Accelerating Innovation: Commitment to rapidly evaluating and implementing new evidence and interventions.
  • “We really want … the WHO to be able to evaluate that evidence and issue new policy guidelines as soon as possible.” – Anil Soni [10:14]

7. Making the Economic Case & Sustainability

• Long-Term View Needed: Governments often prioritize short-term wins; the panel stresses long-term investment in health [10:54].

  • “We need to start shifting towards looking at longer term outcomes.” – Eisha Gupta [11:13]

• “Spend Smarter, Not Just More”: More efficient integration rather than increased spending.

  • “We're not repeatedly saying spend more. That's no longer viable. It's spend smarter.” – Anil Soni [11:52]

8. Trust, Accountability, and Public-Private Partnerships

• Addressing Skepticism: Distinction between conflict and alignment of interest when engaging corporations in public health [12:43].

  • “There's a difference between conflict of interest and alignment of interest … As long as their corporate interests don't influence the science.” – Anil Soni [13:01]

• Colgate’s Perspective: From CSR roots to system-level change.

  • “If everyone knows our brand and we're selling products, why don't we also make sure we're doing something good in the world?” – Eisha Gupta [14:25]

• Role of WHO Foundation: Enables partnerships while preserving WHO’s normative independence [14:52].

  • “The WHO foundation has enabled us to speak the same language as the WHO … and align on priorities.” – Eisha Gupta [15:32]

9. The Role of Davos and Global Forums

• Global gatherings reinforce mission alignment and catalyze shared action among diverse actors.
  • “Having partnerships like this is what allow different organizations with different assets … to come together to achieve … a very common mission.” – Anil Soni [17:37]

10. Key Takeaways for Decision Makers

• Collective Action Required: Strong call to public-private partnerships and shared goals.

  • “My main message is … we need to form more public private sector partnerships … take collective action to reach those goals.” – Eisha Gupta [18:06]

• Oral Health as Public Health: Reiterated as a foundational, not peripheral, issue [18:37].

  • “I want to say to as many people as possible, oral health is public health.” – Anil Soni [18:37]

• WHO’s Evolving Role: From vertical initiatives to backbone of national health integration.

  • “WHO plays that role in a way that other organizations simply don't.” – Anil Soni [19:31]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the root importance of oral health:

  “Healthy mouth leads to overall health.”
  — Eisha Gupta [01:19]

• On systemic integration:

  “We're not going to have a new vertical program … What we're really talking about is how do we treat oral health as public health … integration into primary care.”
  — Anil Soni [06:50–07:07]

• On impact measurement and feedback:

  “It’s not around undue influence, it’s actually around saying, but what impact are we going to achieve and what’s the theory of change...”
  — Anil Soni [16:23]

• On overcoming skepticism of private sector engagement:

  “There's a difference between conflict of interest and alignment of interest … That doesn't make them the bad guys or the bad people. It actually makes them partners as long as their corporate interests don't influence the science.”
  — Anil Soni [13:01]

• On the core message for the world:

  “Oral health is public health.”
  — Anil Soni [18:37]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:04 – Introduction; setting the stage at Davos
• 01:01 – Why oral health matters globally
• 03:25 – Announcement of partnership
• 05:05 – Colgate’s Bright Smiles, Bright Futures Program
• 06:36 – Integrating oral health into primary care & health systems
• 08:01 – Three pillars of partnership explained
• 10:03 – Importance of innovation and new evidence
• 10:54 – Economic case & government priorities
• 12:43 – Addressing public-private partnership concerns
• 14:11 – Colgate’s journey & rationale for scaling up
• 17:09 – The importance of Davos and the World Economic Forum
• 18:06 – Key messages to leaders
• 20:24 – Reflections on elevating the issue and closing

Final Reflection

The episode spotlights oral health’s urgent need for higher priority on the global agenda, leveraging a public-private partnership to drive change in policy, programming, and perception. The integration focus, evidence-based advocacy, and insistence on collaborative action underline a vision for health systems that are holistic, efficient, and inclusive.