It is well known that oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) is a symptom arising from many different aetiologies or disease conditions and that it is a significant morbidity affecting people’s quality of life. Establishing the prevalence of OD is complicated by the many different instruments used to identify dysphagia including patient self-report tools, clinician-rated tools and instrumental assessments which may mar the true prevalence. The authors of this systematic review and meta-analysis have therefore chosen to investigate the prevalence of OD worldwide by analysing studies that have reported and confirmed the presence of dysphagia using instrumental assessments of videofluoroscopy or video-endoscopy (FEES). They developed the protocol in line with PRISMA standards and explored six electronic databases resulting in a final inclusion of 30 studies. They found a combined prevalence of 60% [CI 95% =50%-70%], however they caution that the wide variation between baseline conditions for underlying disease and/or risk factors tended to overestimate the prevalence. Healthy individuals were only assessed in one study which showed a prevalence of 31% [CI 95% =27%-36%]. Despite the prudence required in interpreting these prevalence findings, the review highlights that OD is a significant and sizable problem.