Research Project
7737640
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The research aims to inform the development of more appropriate oral health interventions by answering the following two questions: (1) do the children of parents with poor oral health (and poor oral health expectations) grow up to have poor oral health;and (2) do people with poor oral health tend to come from families with poor oral health? The proposed study is the only oral health study in the world to have (a) followed a complete birth cohort from early childhood into their thirties, and (b) to have collected oral health information from their parents as well. The clinical and self-report data have been collected (using US NIH and NZ Health Research Council funding);the purpose of this application is to obtain support for the analysis of the intergenerational data. The specific oral conditions which we intend to study are dental caries, periodontal disease, tooth-loss experience, and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). The planned research will be guided by the life-course approach (Kuh and Ben-Shlomo, 1997), whereby the nature and determinants of longitudinal connections from childhood to adulthood are uncovered and explored. Our specific research aims are: (1) to estimate the nature and extent of intergenerational continuity in oral health;(2) to determine the associations of any such intergenerational continuity;and (3) to determine the modifiers of any such continuity, with particular attention to social disparities (and whether parental social status ameliorates or exacerbates the transfer of risk of poor oral health across the generations). The planned research has enormous potential for improving our understanding of the way in which poor (or good) oral health is transmitted through generations. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The research aims to inform the development of more appropriate oral health interventions by answering the following two questions: (1) do the children of parents with poor oral health (and poor oral health expectations) grow up to have poor oral health;and (2) do people with poor oral health tend to come from families with poor oral health? The planned study offers a unique opportunity for such an investigation because it has assembled more than three decades of data on participants and their parents.
