When a group of collaborators wanted to eliminate early childhood caries on the Crow and Hopi reservations in Montana and Arizona, respectively, they began by… Read more
oral health
CHER partnerships build capacity to address American Indian health
From its beginnings in 2016, the Center for Health Equity Research (CHER) has been working with community partners on long-term health equity projects that improve health and wellbeing of American Indian communities of the U.S. Southwest, Southeast and Great Plains. During National American Indian Heritage Month, we highlight a few… Read more
NAU investigators study childhood caries in Hawaii
For the past three years, Viacheslav “Slava” Fofanov and other Northern Arizona University researchers have been studying tooth decay in 350 preschoolers in northern Arizona to see if they are affected by the acidic bacteria in their oral “microbiome.” They will soon begin working… Read more
CHER part of team tackling children’s oral health
CHER Director, Julie Baldwin, is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers awarded a grant from the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission to investigate why Arizona preschoolers suffer from tooth decay at a much higher rate than the national average. Rural northern Arizona, in particular, has a troublingly high rate of tooth decay among preschoolers aged 2 to 5 years. The team will collaborate with SMART Smiles and First Things First to sequence the genomes of bacteria collected from plaque samples… Read more