state to release a national strategy. A symposium about the strategy was hosted by NOHRS co-chairs Dr. Leigha Rock and Dr. Allison, among others. “This strategy is a first of its kind and will inform governments and decision makers, funding agencies, researchers and their organizations, health care practitioners, the public, and others to focus both on emerging, priority issues for Canadian society and on innovative methodological and technological approaches to address these issues,” says Dr. Rock. “We have seen this incredible momentum in recent years from the Canadian oral health research community, oral health care professionals, and patient and public partners,” says Dr. Hetty Mulhall, associate scientific director at CIHRIMHA. “Canada is one of the first countries in the world to create a strategy like this. It is a ‘map’ that aims to advance the health of people living in Canada through research. The summit was a timely opportunity for people to come together and amplify learnings from these initiatives, find solutions to shared challenges, and encourage everyone to take ownership of the next steps.” A symposium about federal initiatives to support oral health in Canada provided a detailed overview of the CDCP. It included a presentation by Dr. James Taylor, Chief Dental Officer of Canada, which provided the context, rationale and overall goals of the CDCP. A Health Canada representative spoke about expected outcomes of the CDCP, Over 350 people attended the inaugural CanadianOral Health Summit, held at Dalhousie University. and how they will be measured, while a representative of Statistics Canada discussed the upcoming collection of oral health data through the Oral Health Statistics Program. This was followed by a facilitated discussion of these issues with the audience. Further symposia topics included cultivating equity, diversity, and inclusivity in dental education, harnessing complex and multimodal data to advance Canadian population oral health research, and exploring the relationship between oral health and frailty, among others. A day-long workshop on Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) data use, with a spotlight on oral health, was led by Dr. Aimee Dawson and representatives from Statistics Canada. The workshop showed users where to find and how to navigate sources of information about the CHMS and help end users understand what, why and how various aspects of the survey design need to be We have seen this incredible momentum in recent years from the Canadian oral health research community, oral health care professionals, and patient and public partners. 20 | 2024 | Issue 5 News and Events
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