NORTHEASTERN MINORITY ORAL HEALTH RESEARCH CENTER

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The Northeastern Minority Oral Health Research Center (NMOHRC) is a collaborative project between UMDNJ-New Jersey Dental School (NJDS) and University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine (UCONN). The general aims are: 1- maintain and strengthen a center to study oral health in minorities, 2-support, mentor and advise junior minority investigators to increase the participation of racial and ethnic minority faculty members in research, 3- strengthen the research capacity of NJDS with a specific emphasis on design, implementation and analysis of research on the oral health minorities, The general focus of the research projects will be on dental caries, oral manifestations of HIV and oral cancer, all health problems that affect minorities more than whites. Studies will be based upon a psychobiomedical model which incorporates psychological, sociocultural and biomedical components and assumes that there are multi- factorial causes of oral disease. The interrelated theme of the projects will be a clinical/epidemiological/behavioral approach to determining the prevalence and etiologies of these diseases in minorities. The NMOHRC will be composed of an Administrative Services Core, a Research Design, Data Management and Analysis Core and a Behavioral Sciences Core. Four research projects will be conducted on the prevention of nursing caries in very young children, oral manifestations of HIV infection in a pediatric population, the identification of biological/ behavioral markers of oral cancer in older age minorities, and a study of the underlying reasons why minority subjects volunteer to participate in biomedical research at lower rates than whites.