Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the customized oral health promotion programfor North Korean defectors (NKDs).

Methods: Using a pre-survey comprising phases 1-5 of the PRECEDE-PROCEED model, a customizedoral health promotion program was created. The participants, a total of 129 NKDs, were allocatedto the experimental group (n=64; 43 females and 21 males) or the control group (n=65; 46 females and19 males). After the interventions, phases 7 to 9 of the PRECEDE-PROCEED model were executed todetermine the effect of the program.

Results: The results for phase 7 revealed high satisfaction with the program, with an average of 2.89out of 3 points. In phase 8, concerning the impact evaluation, it was found that oral health beliefs andoral health knowledge were improved, with statistically significance differences before and after the experiment. Phase 9, concerning the outcome evaluation, showed that there were statistically significantdifferences in the average within groups before and after education in oral health beliefs (OHB), O’Learyindex scores, and CPI. In terms of the difference between the groups, there were statistically significantimprovement in OHB, O’Leary index scores, and CPI after the education program.

Conclusions: The oral health promotion program