Life Cycle Assessment Applied to Oral Healthcare: A Scoping Review

Context/Objectives: Environmental sustainability has become a growing concern in oral health, as dental care involves materials, devices, energy consumption, water usage, transportation, and complex supply chains, resulting in the generation of various types of waste and emissions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) offers a methodological framework for evaluating environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of products, procedures, services, and population-level interventions. This scoping review aimed to map how LCA has been applied to assess environmental impacts related to oral health. Methods: A scoping review was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute recommendations and reported according to the PRISMA-ScR checklist. Information about the review was made available through a public Open Science Framework project created on 20 February 2026. Primary studies applying LCA to clinical dental procedures, dental materials and devices, oral health services, or population-level preventive interventions were included. Searches were performed in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science Core Collection, and the Cochrane Library, as well as MEDLINE, LILACS, WPRIM, IBECS, and BINACIS through the Virtual Health Library (BVS) interface. The final search was conducted on 11 February 2026, without language or publication year restrictions. Data were narratively synthesized and organized according to study characteristics, methodological aspects, impact categories, environmental hotspots, and reported limitations. Results: Twenty-one studies published between 2014 and 2026 were included, of which 20 (95.2%) had bibliographic publication years of 2020 or later. The evidence was concentrated in Northern Hemisphere countries. Dental materials and devices were the most frequently investigated subjects, followed by clinical procedures, population-level preventive interventions, and oral health services. Among the included publications, openLCA was reported in 17 (81.0%) and ecoinvent in 20 (95.2%). Climate change, expressed as CO2 equivalents, was a frequently reported impact category. Reported environmental hotspots included single-use materials, energy consumption, sterilization and reprocessing, transportation, and material manufacturing. The included studies showed heterogeneity in methodological choices and assessment contexts. Conclusions: This scoping review maps the methodological characteristics, environmental hotspots, and research gaps in the application of LCA to oral healthcare. The heterogeneity of the available evidence limits direct comparisons and does not establish the environmental superiority of specific dental practices. Clinical, institutional, and policy decisions require context-specific assessments, functionally equivalent comparisons, and explicit consideration of uncertainty.