The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) has awarded an additional $1.47 million to Pitt’s School of Dental Medicine for a joint project with West Virginia University (WVU) to determine what causes oral health disparities in underserved populations.

In 2003, NIDCR awarded Pitt and WVU $6.1 million for research aimed at determining how genetics and other familial factors contribute to oral health disparities in Appalachia, specifically in Webster and Nicholas counties in West Virginia. The new grant will allow researchers to expand their work to include studying how environmental and behavioral factors can affect oral health—and also to expand the reach of the research to rural areas of Pennsylvania, namely Bradford and Burgettstown.

“Our preliminary work on this project has already uncovered some important clues as to why people in Appalachia have poor oral health,” said Mary L. Marazita, associate dean for research and head of the Division of Oral Biology in Pitt’s dental medicine school and professor of human genetics in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health. “By expanding the reach of this project into rural Pennsylvania and by expanding criteria to incorporate the study of genetics, behavior, microbiology, and environment into a single conceptual framework, we hope to find a large number of risk factors that cause oral health disparities in the region’s underserved populations, allowing us to better treat the population and to develop interventions to reduce the disparity.”

Information will be gathered from a cross-section of families on health behaviors, economic status, family structure, and family environment to determine whether any of these factors affect oral health. Blood samples also will be taken to determine whether there are any genetic factors that contribute to poor oral health. In addition, researchers will study community-level factors that affect the accessibility of dental care.

According to Oral Health in America: A Report from the Surgeon General, widespread disparities in oral healthcare exist in the United States; many Americans are uninformed about oral health; and oral health services are inaccessible to some populations. In addition, there are not adequate data to determine the cause of these disparities, making the planning and implementation of effective prevention and treatment programs difficult.