Research & Projects

Oral health can be assessed from different perspectives and the criteria for ‘good’ oral health can differ greatly. In addition, oral health is multidimensional. In our research group we measure oral health in various ways.

  • Clinically: dental plaque, dental caries, orthodontics, oral microbiome
  • PROM’s: Subjective treatment need, oral health related quality of life
  • Behavioral: oral hygiene, nutrition behavior

Themes

  • Social and nutritional determinants of children’s oral health
  • The oral microbiome as risk factor for dental caries
  • Association between prenatal exposures and facial morphological development
  • Oral health in cleft patients
  • Dental development in childhood and adolescence
  • Genome-Wide Association Studies of dental maturation
  • Association between craniofacial and axial skeletal traits
  • Leveraging tissue specific multi-omic data

Publications

Social inequalities and dental caries in six-year-old children from the Netherlands (van der Tas JT, Kragt L, Elfrink MEC, Bertens LCM, Jaddoe VWV, Moll HA, Ongkosuwito EM, Wolvius EB. Social inequalities and dental caries in six-year-old children from the Netherlands. J Dent. 2017 Jul;62:18-24. doi: 10.1016/j.jdent.2017.04.008. Epub 2017 Apr 24. PMID: 28450065; PMCID: PMC6485603.)

Associations Between Prenatal, Perinatal, and Early Childhood Vitamin D Status and Risk of Dental Caries at 6 Years (Navarro CLA, Grgic O, Trajanoska K, van der Tas JT, Rivadeneira F, Wolvius EB, Voortman T, Kragt L. Associations Between Prenatal, Perinatal, and Early Childhood Vitamin D Status and Risk of Dental Caries at 6 Years. J Nutr. 2021 May 12:nxab075. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxab075. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33982112.)

Neighbourhood characteristics and children’s oral health: a multilevel population-based cohort study (van Meijeren-van Lunteren AW, Oude Groeniger J, Wolvius EB, Kragt L. Neighbourhood characteristics and children’s oral health: a multilevel population-based cohort study. Eur J Public Health. 2021 Feb 24:ckab013. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckab013. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33624096.)

Consortium-based genome-wide meta-analysis for childhood dental caries traits (Haworth S, Shungin D, van der Tas JT, Vucic S, Medina-Gomez C, Yakimov V, Feenstra B, Shaffer JR, Lee MK, Standl M, Thiering E, Wang C, Bønnelykke K, Waage J, Jessen LE, Nørrisgaard PE, Joro R, Seppälä I, Raitakari O, Dudding T, Grgic O, Ongkosuwito E, Vierola A, Eloranta AM, West NX, Thomas SJ, McNeil DW, Levy SM, Slayton R, Nohr EA, Lehtimäki T, Lakka T, Bisgaard H, Pennell C, Kühnisch J, Marazita ML, Melbye M, Geller F, Rivadeneira F, Wolvius EB, Franks PW, Johansson I, Timpson NJ. Consortium-based genome-wide meta-analysis for childhood dental caries traits. Hum Mol Genet. 2018 Sep 1;27(17):3113-3127. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddy237. PMID: 29931343; PMCID: PMC6097157.)