Scottish schools to use $209K grant for oral health research

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) is to support the Universities of Glasgow and Dundee with 132,000 pounds ($209,000) to strengthen their collaboration on dental and oral health research.

The dental schools at the two universities will use the three-year grant to focus on inequalities in dental health, access to dental services, oral cancer, and craniofacial birth defects (such as cleft lip and cleft palate), they announced. The universities will pool their resources to share an administrator who will support their joint research activities, work with stakeholders including primary care givers and the University of Aberdeen Dental School, and seek additional sources of funding to sustain their research.

Both universities will also work in partnership with the a National Health Service (NHS) Education-funded Scottish Dental Practice Based Research Network and dental practitioners to put their research findings into practice through better dental and oral healthcare.

Oral health is recognized as a very sensitive measure of inequalities in general health, and this research responds to Scottish government priorities for improving oral health, as well as building on progress already made through oral health programs such as Childsmile.

"Glasgow and Dundee Dental Schools have been moving towards closer collaboration on a number of fronts in recent times," said Jeremy Bagg, BDS, head of the dental school at the University of Glasgow. "This funding from SFC provides an excellent opportunity to build a strong and sustainable oral health research portfolio."