This article is part of an oral health care investigation carried out in nursing homes. It aims to relate the meaning of oral health care among the institutionalized elderly to questions of public policy, given the current national context of the implementation of health and oral hygiene policies. It is a qualitative study based on the Grounded Theory. The two sample groups were composed of three elderly people, four caregivers, two nursing personnel, and three administrators in the first, with three dentists, three civil service managers, and one administrator in the second. After re-reading the data collected through open interviews and comparative analysis, the category Inserting elderly oral health care in the political-organizational dimension encompasses health/oral health public policies. In spite of legal guarantees, increased resources, and expansion of the services, the implementation of public policies which include the elderly in oral health actions is incipient to assuring a public-state-governmental commitment and to transforming epidemiological reality.
Health of the elderly; Health public policy; Oral health