Announcing: New Pan-Canadian Study of Oral Health
"Oral health and oral health care of Canadians", a new three-year, pan-Canadian study funded by CIHR-IMHA, will shed light on social determinants and inequalities in oral health with a goal to improve access to dental care. This study will aim to better understand the links between oral and general health across Canada. Oral health is essential to the general health and wellbeing of Canadians.
This study, led by Dr. Paul Allison, Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University, is a collaboration with Statistics Canada's Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). The partnership involves all ten Canadian dental schools. The research group will work with CHMS to add essential oral health clinical (oral exams by dentists) and self-reported data to the regularly scheduled surveys by the CHMS. Data will be collected from January 2022 through to December 2023 among Canadians aged 1 – 79 years old. Results from the study should be available by 2025.
Nearly all oral health care is private (even publicly funded oral health care, most of which takes place in private clinics), and data is not added to public data systems like the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI). Given the relation between oral health and common risk factors such as nutrition, environment and social determinants, accurate and current oral health data are essential to any comprehensive approach to improving and maintaining the health and wellbeing of Canadians.
A database, and research/training infrastructure is planned to enable oral health researchers, students, practitioners and decision-makers to address pertinent oral health and oral health care-related research concerns. The researchers also aim to facilitate knowledge translation and exchange with appropriate stakeholders and build sustainable long-term capacity in oral health-related research.
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