Driving research that enhances healthcare effectiveness, informs policy and practice, and improves patient outcomes.
Driving research that enhances healthcare effectiveness, informs policy and practice, and improves patient outcomes.
Advancing evidence-based healthcare through research, leadership, and collaboration to improve quality, practice, and outcomes.
Advancing public health through impactful research, teaching, and a commitment to reducing health inequalities.
Combining psychology and behavioural science to develop evidence-based approaches that improve health and wellbeing.
Overseeing the delivery of high-quality clinical trials, ensuring research is conducted efficiently, compliantly, and effectively.
Supporting the delivery of impactful research through effective project coordination, collaboration, and organisation.
Established in 1968 at the Colgate Salford site, the Dental Health Unit (DHU) was designed to bridge academic research with industrial excellence. For nearly 60 years, we have successfully delivered numerous oral health epidemiological studies and clinical trials of new oral health interventions and products. Operating as a long-standing partnership between the University of Manchester and the Colgate-Palmolive Company, the DHU continues to advance oral health through innovative, multidisciplinary research streams.
The DHU has a proud history of groundbreaking scientific achievements. Most notably, our pivotal clinical trials were instrumental in proving the effectiveness of monofluorophosphate (MFP). This critical research supported the foundational evidence for products that became global standards in caries prevention for decades. Furthermore, we have developed and tested new diagnostic technologies for the detection of oral conditions, which continue to be employed globally across observational and interventional research projects.
Beyond our research projects, the DHU is proud to have supported the early careers of many individuals over the past six decades through our PhD and post-doctoral programmes. Our ‘DHU Alumni’ have gone on to forge successful careers in academia, industry, and public organisations. The DHU’s influence extends deeply into evidence-based dentistry worldwide. Prominent alumni Helen Worthington and Jan Clarkson were instrumental in the foundation and leadership of the Cochrane Oral Health Group, where Jan continues to coordinate its editorship today.
Our research explores how family routines from morning to bedtime in families can affect children’s development and wellbeing and how we can support parents to achieve better routines with the use of technology.
Our work explores how text messages, as a cheap and easy to use technology, can be used for data collection and intervention delivery to instil change, capture data and manage studies more effectively.
We are interested in how to effectively capture and quantify patient experiences and patient-reported outcomes to inform and complement our work and clinical studies relating to oral health.
Working with schools to develop an evidence-based behaviour change intervention to promote oral health practices in children.
Our work, in partnership with Manchester City Council, aims to create a community-based, oral health promotion intervention targeting underserved communities across Manchester.
The DHU and Dr George Kitsaras lead a research network on oral health behaviour change. BeCinD aims to improve oral health through the application of evidence-based behaviour change science.
This landmark 7-year study used a ‘natural experiment’ design to evaluate the impact of artificial water fluoridation on caries levels in children.
This family-level interventional study delivered toothpaste and toothbrushes for 24 months to families with children who are at increased risk of experiencing a general anaesthetic to have teeth extracted.
This retrospective cohort study reviewed over 30 million dental treatment records of adults alongside water fluoridation data to explore the effects of water fluoridation on dental treatment experiences of UK adults.
