The health economics of addressing child oral health inequalities through the Childsmile programme
Supervisors:
Dr Stefen Serban, School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing
Dr Manuela Deidda, School of Health and Wellbeing
Prof Andrea Sherriff, School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing
Prof David Conway, School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing
Summary:
Childsmile is the national child oral health improvement programme for Scotland and has been responsible for reducing the levels of tooth decay in school children over the past 20 years using a mixture of universal and targeted interventions across multiple settings (nurseries, schools, community, and dental practice). Our research team has shown that in the early years of the programme, the nursery supervised toothbrushing intervention was the most beneficial component of Childsmile, especially among children from the most deprived areas of Scotland-and that this intervention had saved the Scottish Government nearly £5 million in avoided treatments for tooth decay. Childsmile has developed and evolved over time and is now in its 20th year of implementation with a rich array of data collated to evaluate the programme. This project will utilise large, linked datasets within the University of Glasgow Dental School’s child oral health datalab in the Scotland's National Safe Haven, to quantify the cost of delivering the programme interventions against the offset of avoided treatment cost and the wider societal impact costs (such as days off school and work for dental appointments) through an inequality lens. Working in collaboration with experienced health economists and dental public health consultants alongside a multidisciplinary group of PhD students, the successful candidate will develop their skills in econometrics, epidemiology, dental public health and translation of research into policy.