Dr. Michael I. MacEntee, Professor of Prosthodontics and Dental Geriatrics, ELDERS Research Group

Dr. Michael I. MacEntee, professor of Prosthodontics and Dental Geriatrics, ELDERS Research Group, has won the International Association of Dental Research Distinguished Scientist Award for Geriatric Oral Research for his outstanding multidisciplinary research.

His work over the years includes contributions to epidemiology, biomaterials, clinical science, and, most recently, the oral health needs of elderly populations.

Notably, MacEntee realized that the usual research methods in epidemiology did not explain or predict the oral health-related behaviours of older people or their health care providers. Consequently, he pioneered the development of more robust explanatory models of oral health that employed qualitative “real world” methods. His studies led to the construction of a new biopsychosocial model of oral health that conforms to the framework and language of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Function.

His research has demonstrated the dominant influence of psychosocial factors on the status of oral health and on the success or failure of dental treatments. The research methods that his team developed offer a novel and productive approach to explaining, controlling and managing factors that influence the health and quality of life of people as they grow old and frail.

George Zarb, in an editorial for the International Journal of Prosthodontics, writes that MacEntee is “one of the best minds in the discipline…a scholar whose urbane and civilized humanitarianism has already had a profound influence…”