Harnessing the World Health Organization's ‘3 by 35’ Initiative to Finance Oral Health Care in India

BACKGROUND: Oral diseases such as dental caries, periodontal disease, tooth loss and oral cancer affect billions of people worldwide. India, with the world's largest population, carries one of the heaviest burdens of oral and other Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). These diseases share common risk factors such as consumption of tobacco, alcohol and sugary food and drinks. One effective approach to reducing the consumption of these products in the population is to increase taxes on them. WHO recently proposed a '3 by 35' initiative, which calls for raising the prices of these harmful products by at least 50% by 2035 through health-oriented taxation. METHODS: This paper draws on a situation analysis of India's fiscal and policy landscape to assess how well the country is positioned to implement the WHO '3 by 35' initiative. RESULTS: The findings suggest that India's fiscal landscape presents both challenges and a timely opportunity to achieve the goals of the WHO '3 by 35' initiative. It has a strong tax system and tobacco control measures, but critical gaps are observed in the taxation of smokeless tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Oral health is severely underfunded despite a high disease burden, with negligible per capita allocation. India must restructure the health tax, introduce nutrient- and risk-based taxation, and earmark a share of health tax revenues to strengthen its oral health programmes and integrate them into the overall NCDs agenda. CONCLUSION: Adopting health-oriented taxation and earmarking funds for oral health can reduce disease burden and advance equitable access to oral health care.