Metaverse in dentistry: development and evaluation of meta-ohe for oral health promotion and education

Oral diseases remain among the most prevalent non-communicable diseases globally, disproportionately affecting adolescents due to behavioural vulnerabilities and socio-environmental risk factors. Despite the long-standing implementation of school-based oral health programmes by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Malaysia, national data continue to report high caries and gingival disease prevalence among secondary school adolescents. Traditional oral health education (OHE) methods—typically delivered through didactic talks and printed materials— have limited effectiveness in engaging today’s digital-native youth. While mobile health (mHealth) interventions such as SMS or WhatsApp have offered incremental improvements, they often fail to provide immersive, experiential learning capable of sustaining behavioural change. This dissertation addresses critical gap by developing and evaluating Meta-OHE, the Metaverse-based oral health education platform tailored for adolescents.