Professor Eduardo Bernabe, BDS (Hons), PhD

Profile

I am Professor of Dental Public Health at Queen Mary University of London and Honorary Academic Consultant in the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities. I graduated with honours in Dentistry from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in 1998 and worked for two years as a general dental practitioner for the Ministry of Health in Peru. I joined my alma mater in 2001, to work as Assistant Professor and from 2006 as Associate Professor in the Department of Social Dentistry. During that time, I completed my MSc in Stomatology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Research Statistics.

I came to the UK to complete my PhD in Epidemiology at University College London and my postdoctoral training at the Institute of Dentistry of Queen Mary University of London. I joined King’s College London as Senior Lecturer in 2011 and was promoted to Reader in 2017. I returned to Queen Mary University of London in 2023 to be appointed Professor of Dental Public Health.

I have been a consultant for various international organizations, including the American Dental Association (ADA) Health Policy Institute, the Swedish Health Technology Assessment Board and the World Health Organization (WHO). I have also been involved in the editorial board of multiple journals (both in dentistry and public health) and have received prestigious awards from academic institutions and international organizations for my work.

Research

Research Interests:

I have built my international esteem working on four areas:

The social determinants of oral health inequalities. Work in this area focuses on understanding the role of contextual factors in explaining oral health inequalities between and within countries; unravelling the biological, behavioural, and psychosocial processes that operate across generations or during the early years of life to influence the risk of oral diseases; and understanding the patterns and causes of oral health inequalities by ethnicity and migration status in the UK.

The burden of oral conditions on individuals and societies. Work in this area focuses on measuring the global burden of oral conditions as part of the Global Burden of Disease Study; quantifying the financial consequences of out-of-pocket payments for dental care on households in low-and-middle-income countries; and using patient-reported outcome measures (e.g., quality of life) for needs assessment, tracking population oral health over time, and evaluating treatment effects.

The link between oral and chronic conditions. Work in this area focuses on elucidating the mechanisms underlying the relationship between oral and systemic conditions among children and older adults; understanding the role of common risk factors and reverse causality in explaining these associations; and the relevance of oral conditions to identify medical conditions and as part of multidimensional states associated with ageing (e.g., multimorbidity, disability and frailty).

Evaluation of policies and interventions. Work in this area focuses on the assessment of policies, programmes and treatments to determine their effectiveness, equity and overall impact on oral health outcomes of individuals and populations as well as on the organisation and delivery of dental healthcare services. These evaluations are carried out in randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies supported by methods for causal inference with observational data.

 

Publications

Outstanding Publications

Bernabe E, Marcenes W, Hernandez CR, Bailey J, Abreu LG, Alipour V et al. Global, Regional, and National Levels and Trends in Burden of Oral Conditions from 1990 to 2017: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study. J Dent Res. 2020;99(4):362-373. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022034520908533

 

Heakeem FF, Bernabe E, Sabbah W. Association between oral health and frailty: A systematic review of longitudinal studies. Gerodontology. 2019;36(3):205-215. https://doi.org/10.1111/ger.12406

 

Bernabe E, Masood M, Vujicic M. The impact of out-of-pocket payments for dental care on household finances in low-and-middle-income countries. BMC Public Health. 2017;17(1):109. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4042-0

 

Bernabe E, Vehkalahti MM, Sheiham A, Lundqvist A, Suominen AL. The shape of the dose-response relationship between sugars and caries in adults. J Dent Res. 2016;95(2):167-72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022034515616572   

 

Bernabe E, Sheiham A. Age, period and cohort trends in caries of permanent teeth in four developed countries. Am J Public Health. 2014;104(7):e115-21. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.301869 

Supervision

I have supervised over 10 PhD students throughout my career. I welcome proposals for postgraduate research in the fields of oral health inequalities, oral epidemiology and evaluation of policies and interventions related to oral health.

Current students:

• Fariah H Jangda. Self-funded. Starch intake and common oral diseases in adults.
• Noora Jawad. Self-funded. Adverse childhood experiences and childhood oral health.