Dental fear is common and acts as a barrier to receiving routine oral healthcare. As well as the psychological impact of dental fear, the inability to access dental care may have impact on oral health status or even systemic health. Dental fear can result from negative experiences, but different individuals also have differing genetic susceptibility to dental fear and the condition is around 30% heritable. Despite this, there is limited understanding of the genetics of dental fear, probably because few large studies have measured dental fear using a validated index. Within ALSPAC dental fear was measured using the Corah anxiety scale at age 17.5 years.
ALSPAC has been invited to join a new consortium investigating the genetics of dental fear, which may shed new light on the biology of dental fear or novel ways to identify individuals at risk.
This project aims to undertake analysis in ALSPAC as part of this consortium, allowing ALSPAC to contribute to this novel, exploratory research.