Oral Health
Oral health is an essential component to a healthy life. Oral health is not only concerned with teeth, but the health of oral and related tissues that enables an individual to eat, speak and socialise without active disease, discomfort or embarrassment, and that contributes to general wellbeing.
Oral health research seeks to understand population and individual dental health to prevent or manage oral disease and to educate our community to maintain optimal oral health throughout their lives.
Our research spans a broad range of fields including: dental education; endodontics and pulp biology (stem cell research); periodontics; orthodontics; craniofacial biology; oral and maxillofacial surgery; forensic odontology; population oral health; and cancer treatment.
Our research activity also includes epidemiological studies focusing on the efficacy of population oral health interventions, oral health services and oral health policy analysis in relation to oral disease prevention and provision of optimal dental health services.
Researchers across the faculty are focused on:
- assessing intergenerational change in oral health in Australia
- monitoring of Indigenous oral health and the use of dental services
- performing population-based studies focusing on socioeconomic and psychosocial factors related to the use of dental services
- investigating patient-reported outcomes of dental care, such as oral health impact, health utility and quality of life.
Our research centres working in this area
- Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health (Professor David Brennan)
- Centre of Research Excellence in Translating Nutritional Science to Good Health (Professor Michael Horowitz)
Our research groups working in this area
- Cancer Treatment Toxicities Group (Associate Professor Joanne Bowen)
- Indigenous Oral Health Unit (Professor Lisa Jamieson)
- Mesenchymal Stem Cell Group (Professor Stan Gronthos)
- Translational Research in Oral Health Science (Dr Peter Zilm)
Lead researchers
For additional leads in this area of research, please contact Oral Health researchers.
Interested in a postgraduate research degree?
We offer exciting opportunities for researchers at the honours, masters and PhD levels. Our research degrees are open to students from a broad range of backgrounds, and range from basic sciences to clinical research. If you are interested in human health, consider furthering your research career with us.