Q&A on Oral Health and Healthy Aging Dr. Noha Gomaa, assistant professor and associate director of research at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and her team recently published an article that considers the impact of access to oral health care on the well-being of older adults in Canada.1 The study assessed the extent of the association between suboptimal oral health and multimorbidity among middle-aged and older adults, and whether improved access to oral health care can change this relationship. Q What prompted you to conduct this study? Dr. Noha Gomaa (NG): Part of what my research group at Western University studies is characterizing the connections between oral and general health at the population level, including the impacts of oral health interventions on overall health. Aligning with the United Nations-World Health Organization Collaborative on Healthy Aging, there is a growing interest in Canada and internationally in understanding the determinants of health in older populations. However, oral health and oral health care are often left out from these discussions. We sought to investigate how oral health contributes to the burden of chronic diseases, or multimorbidity, in older adults in Canada and to further examine the role of access to oral health care in this relationship. Q Could you tell us about the data set that you used for this study? NG: We have been leveraging data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging for multiple projects in my lab that investigate the social and biological determinants of oral health around aging. This dataset enables us to look at a nationwide sample of 50,000 middle-aged and older Canadians who are followed through time. This longitudinal study We sought to investigate how oral health contributes to the burden of chronic diseases, or multimorbidity, in older adults in Canada and to further examine the role of access to oral health care in this relationship. 18 | 2025 | Issue 1
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