Dentistry professor wins international prize

A University of Manchester professor has won an international award for her research in dentistry and oral health care.

Professor Helen Worthington, from the School of Dentistry, received the 2012 prestigious H Trendley Dean Memorial Award from the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) at their session in Brazil last week. 

As Professor of evidence-based care, Helen is recognised as a leader in evidence-based dentistry, which has had a profound effect on dental practice and public health worldwide. She has played a key role in developing and refining methods for systematic reviews of evidence for treatments and procedures in the oral health area providing an international evidence base for oral health care.

Professor Worthington has more than 40 years' experience of planning, leadership, management, and interpretation of a high number of important clinical trials, epidemiological studies, and systematic reviews in the field of oral health. The results from these studies and reviews have often led directly to new or revised health policy, prescribing, or clinical practice.

She is joint Co-ordinating Editor (with Professor Jan Clarkson) and statistician for the Cochrane Oral Health Group (conducting many Cochrane reviews herself). The Cochrane Oral Health Group produces systematic reviews of all randomised controlled trials in oral health to make informed judgements about treatment effectiveness, and comprises an international network of more than 1,000 healthcare professionals, researchers and consumers.¹ Cochrane Oral Health Group’s impact factor of 3.600 puts the Group in the top three dentistry journals in the world, behind the Journal of Clinical Periodontology and the Journal of Dental Research.²

Professor Worthington was recently involved in producing a systematic review concerned with the effectiveness of flossing in reducing the risk of gum disease and tooth decay.³ The review demonstrated that on the basis of all available evidence people who brush and floss regularly have less gum bleeding compared to toothbrushing alone.

There was weak, very unreliable evidence of a possible small reduction in plaque, and there was no information on other measurements such as tooth decay because the trials were not long enough and detecting early stage decay between teeth is difficult.

The studies were all of poor quality and conclusions must be viewed as unreliable. Consequently, the review advocates that additional well designed and conducted randomised controlled trials are needed, running for periods longer than 12 months.

The H Trendley Dean Memorial Award, one of only 16 IADR Distinguished Scientist Awards, is supported by the Colgate-Palmolive Company in memory of H Trendley Dean, the 21st President of the IADR and first dental officer of the National Institutes of Health.

The award is given for distinguished accomplishments in research and development in the fields of behavioural science, epidemiology and public health, and is one of the highest honours bestowed by the IADR.

Ends

Notes for editors

¹Oral health is broadly conceived to include the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of oral, dental and craniofacial diseases and disorders.
²The impact factor is a tool for ranking, evaluating, and comparing journals. It is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year.
It is calculated by looking at the number of citations as a proportion of articles in the journal published in the previous two years and is a measure of the importance of a journal or journal article to research.
³The full review can be found at the following location: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008829.pub2/pdf

The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) is a non-profit organisation with nearly 12,000 individual members worldwide. It is dedicated to: advancing research and increasing knowledge to improve oral health; supporting the oral health research community, and facilitating the communication and application of research findings for the improvement of oral health worldwide. Visit www.iadr.org

For further information contact:

Aeron Haworth
Media Relations
Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences
The University of Manchester

Tel: 0161 275 8383
Mob: 07717 881563
Email: aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk