International Social Work, Ahead of Print.
Structural social work (SSW) is a critical theory that frames poverty, violence, and disease as the product of oppressive social structures. SSW concepts were applied to a rural dentistry project in Nepal. Delivery of oral health care in Nepal is influenced by capitalist, colonialist, and scientific-modernist ideologies that disadvantage the rural poor. Jevaia Oral Health Care operationalizes SSW principles of tension relief, consciousness-raising, collectivization, and power-brokering, but is limited in tackling structural problems around etiological aspects of oral disease. SSW offers useful and important practice strategies for improving oral health care in Nepal.