Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 5

Large-Scale Survey of the Health of Canadians Will Include Oral Health Information Dr. Paul Allison of McGill University is the principal investigator workingwith a teamof researchers fromall 10 dental schools in Canada on a $3.3 million research grant for a study of Canadians’ oral health. He discussed the research project with CDA Essentials . Q What will you and your research team be investigating? Dr. Paul Allison (PA): Many will recall the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) performed by Statistics Canada from 2007 to 2009. These results were published in 2010, and it was the first oral health survey of Canadians that included clinical measures in decades. It’s important to update the information we gathered in that previous survey. Now we have the funding to conduct a national survey of the oral health of a representative sample of Canadians. The great thing about this new project is that it not only involves gathering oral health and oral health care data, but data about all elements of the health of Canadians. This will allow us to look at the links between oral health and general health in more detail. The other nice thing about this project is that we’ve been able to put together a team of researchers from all 10 Canadian dental schools, as well as international collaborators. This team of researchers will be working closely with Statistics Canada, who will be doing the data gathering and field work, as this is their expertise. Q When will the field work start and when will the analysis begin? PA: The field work is scheduled to start in January 2022, notwithstanding the pandemic, and be completed two years later in December 2023. This field work involves a team from Statistics Canada driving across the country in large mobile units housed in trucks to 16 designated sites. These mobile units are where people will go to be measured, examined and interviewed to determine their health status, including having dental exams. It will take another year for Statistics Canada to clean, organize and release the data, and then our research team can start the data analysis. The results of this analysis will start to be released in 2025. We want to better understand the links between oral health and general health. They’ll not only be collecting clinical oral health data, but also blood, urine, saliva, and other physical measures that should shed light on oral health-general health questions. Q For the last CHMS, I recall that nobody younger than age 6 was examined. Will that be different for the new survey? PA: Statistics Canada knew of this limitation and they wanted to include a younger age group this time 19 Issue 5 | 2021 |