Children’s Oral Health

Driving improvements in oral health for children and young people through research and collaboration.

Background

Around a quarter of all five-year-old children in England have tooth decay. There are also marked oral health inequalities, driven by the wider social determinants of health.

Traditionally, children and young people’s oral health has sat in a silo, separated from overall child health and wellbeing. This theme is cross-cutting, integrating children’s oral health research across the wider work of CHORAL.

Kids Toothbrush

Project Team

Alice Rigby
Academic Clinical Fellow
Lecturer and Researcher
Claudia Heggie
NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow and Specialist Paediatric Dentist
NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow and Specialist Paediatric Dentist
Academic Clinical Fellow
Lecturer in Behavioural Sciences & Complex Intervention Methodology
Theme Lead - Professor and Consultant in Paediatric Dentistry, University of Leeds

Aim:

We aim to improve children’s oral health, thereby advancing children’s health outcomes and quality of life. We will achieve this through research, collaboration, and advocacy. 

 

  • Identify, understand, and address inequalities in oral health and wider outcomes.
  • Design, evaluate, and implement evidence-based approaches to improve children’s oral health.
  • Explore how oral health interventions work in the ‘real world’, aiming to improve their effectiveness and implementation.
  • Integrate oral health data into birth cohorts & connected datasets to understand and improve services for children & families.
  • Work with children & families, and local & national partners across health, education and the third sector to shape oral health policy, and advocate for the healthiest generation of children ever.

Sub Projects

CHILD-LINK (Child oral Health Improvement utiLising Data LINKage)

CALM – A research project investigating ways to reduce children’s fear of the dentist.

Oral Health and Education

SPOT-LITE

HABIT – Health visitors delivering Advice in Britain on Infant Toothbrushing

toothPASTE

BRUSH – The Supervised Toothbrushing Toolkit

Children’s Oral Health – linktree and further information