UC San Francisco has long been a leader in preventing children’s oral disease and promoting children’s oral health, especially in low-income and minority populations. Now, supporting this ongoing work, the National Institutes of Health has awarded the UCSF School of Dentistry three research awards potentially totaling nearly $21 million.
These three awards are part of 10 research cooperative agreements awarded nationwide by the NIH aimed at eliminating inequities in access to care and improving the oral health of children. The awards of up to five years each support the Multidisciplinary and Collaborative Research Consortium to Reduce Oral Health Disparities in Children, a new initiative of the NIH’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), with funding phased in as milestones are achieved.
”Although significant progress has been made in discovering ways to prevent rampant tooth decay in preschoolers, these new awards will allow for evaluating innovative ways to reduce decay among those populations most at risk,” said John D.B. Featherstone, PhD, MSc, dean of the UCSF School of Dentistry and professor in the Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences.
Center to Address Disparities in Children’s Oral Health (CAN DO)
Previously, UCSF was awarded two consecutive seven-year NIDCR awards totaling more than $35 million, creating and expanding the UCSF Center to Address Disparities in Children’s Oral Health (known as CAN DO). The three new UCSF awards comprise “CAN DO3.”
CAN DO has conducted transdisciplinary research that includes several large randomized controlled clinical prevention trials together with colleagues at UCLA and communities in San Francisco and San Diego County at high risk for caries in young children. The center is directed by Stuart Gansky, DrPH, John C. Greene Professor of Primary Care Dentistry in the Division of Oral Epidemiology and Dental Public Health and vice chair for research in the Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences in the UCSF School of Dentistry.
CAN DO researchers are studying ways to improve the dental health of groups that have historically had worse oral health. The primary focus is preventing tooth decay or early childhood caries in young children, as well as eliminating health disparities among low-income individuals and communities, through sound research, evidence-based practices and policy changes.
”This planned research builds on the body of work of the NIDCR-funded Early Childhood Caries Collaborating Centers, including UCSF’s CAN DO,” Gansky said. ”We are grateful for the opportunity to work on these transdisciplinary research projects because this work has real potential to impact the health triple aim of better care, better health status and lower health care costs.”