The IADR initiative on global inequalities in oral health

Abstract

The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) aims, through the Global Oral Health Inequalities Research Agenda (GOHIRA) initiative, to articulate an agenda that if properly implemented will reduce inequalities in oral health within a generation. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently asserted: ‘We live in a world in which the burden of disease and ill-health is a major barrier to development and realisation of every individual's capabilities. Basic, clinical and population research can transform human wellbeing and has the potential to unite and empower countries.' Thus, we have a responsibility to ensure that the achievement of improved oral health, with concomitant reduction in the global burden of oral disease, is approached in this way. The IADR GOHIRA initiative places emphasis on transdisciplinary, inter-sectoral research, ensuring that oral health is integrated into strategies to reduce health inequalities in general. Detailed proposals across the major oral/maxillofacial diseases of dental caries, periodontal diseases, oral cancer, oral infections and developmental anomalies, and ways in which these might be implemented recognising the major import of social determinants of health, are now published in a special issue of <i>Advances in Dental Research</i>, May 2011, available at http://adr.sagepub.com/content/23/2.toc.