Harvard Professor to Give a Lesson in Global Oral Health

By Amy Tsurumi

The importance of oral health is well captured by a phrase now considered a classic in the world of dentistry and public health: “The mouth is the gateway to the body”.

The Beacon Hill Women’s Forum (BHWF) will be welcoming Dr Brittany Seymour, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine’s oral health policy and epidemiology department and the office of global and community health to share her wide-ranging experiences in improving public health around the world.  Dr Seymour’s talk, ‘Global Dental Crusade’, is expected to start at 6:45pm at the Hampshire House in Boston.

An avid world traveler with a taste for coffee and wine, Dr. Seymour divides her time between teaching, curriculum development, research, projects aimed at eliminating oral diseases globally, and spending time with her husband of 13 years and their 4-year-old daughter. After completing her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Colorado, Dr Seymour started a private dental practice in Denver for five years. Making a bold career pivot, she completed a Masters in public health and took up a fulltime teaching position at Harvard.

Combining dentistry and global health, Dr Seymour’s expertise is in prevention, treatment and policy for oral diseases, particularly in resource-poor communities.  She was a leading figure in the establishment of the first dental school in Rwanda, a dental clinic in a major hospital in Haiti after the earthquake, disease prevention programmes in arctic Alaska and innovation in dentistry education in Vietnam.

BHWF is a nonprofit social club with a goal to build the community by bringing together all women living in Beacon Hill and its surrounding neighbourhoods.  Monthly speaker forums meet on the second Tuesday of each month, September through April, and the Annual Beacon Hill Fashion Show takes place in May