Vida Zohoori is a Professor of Public Health and Nutrition, with particular research interest and expertise in fluorides and public health. She leads the ‘Public Health and Fluoride’ research group in School of Health and Social Care.
Vida was an expert panel member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Oral Health technical working group on 'Monitoring of Renal Fluoride Excretion in Community Preventive Programmes on Oral Health' (2011) and subsequently served as rapporteur (2011-12). She also served as the rapporteur at the ‘Fluoride Symposium: Guidelines for Fluoride Intake - Are They Appropriate?’ (San Francisco - USA, March 2017).
She holds a ‘visiting lecturer’ position at Newcastle University - School of Dental Sciences. She was the winner of the Teesside University ‘Vice-chancellor’s Award’ for ‘Research Performance’ category in 2013. Her expertise is internationally recognised and she has delivered numerous invited lectures at different institutes including Indiana University/USA,Harbin Commerce University/China, University of Glasgow/Scotland, Sao-Paulo University/Brazil, Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre TFNC /Tanzania as keynotes speech at different events such as the ‘Researcher links Workshop on fluoride metabolism’ in Brazil, a ‘Milk Fluoridation’ meeting in Spain and a ‘Fluoride’ meeting in Hungary.
Development of a fluoride assay methodology for plasma from capillary blood samples (2016-2018). Borrow Foundation. Principal Investigator; Co-investigators: A Maguire (Newcastle, UK); EA Martinez-Meir (Indiana, US).
Effect of physical activity on fluoride metabolism in children: a feasibility study (2016-2017), UK Academics/CONFAP Research Mobility award. Co-investigator.
Effect of physical activity on fluoride metabolism (2014-2018). Borrow Foundation. Principal Investigator.
Fluoride research (2011-2018). Borrow Foundation. Co-investigators.
Fluoride metabolism/body fluoride retention: Effects of host (genetic variation) and environment (fluoride dose and exercise) factors (2015-2016). São Paulo Researchers in International Collaboration (SPRINT). Joint Principal Investigator; in collaboration with R Valentine (Newcastle, UK) and MAR Buzalaf (Brazil).
Establish international research collaboration (2014). British Council Seed Funding Grant. Co-investigator.
Fluoride metabolism and public health - a "Question of DETAIL" (2013). British Council- Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Researcher Links. Co-investigator.
Does knowledge and awareness of oral cancer signs and symptoms in at-risk individuals improve the likelihood of early attendance rate in an area experiencing high mortality rates? (2010). Tees NHS. Principal Investigator. Co-investigator: K Shah.
Assessment of fluoride intake of infants in the UK (2009-2010). The Organix Foundation. Principal Investigator.
Dental and skeletal fluorosis in Tanzania (2008). RoyalSociety; Ghana/Tanzanian – UK Science Networking Scheme. Principal Investigator.
Assessment of dietary fluoride intake using two dietary methods (2008). Borrow Foundation. Principal Investigator.
Estimation of Urinary Fluoride Excretion following increased fluoride ingestion from fluoridated milk (2008-2009). Borrow Foundation. Co-investigator.
Effect of three oral hygiene regimes on salivary fluoride concentration (2007). Johnson & Johnson. Principal Investigator.
Is there a risk in reducing the availability of some trace elements in milks if fluoride is added to milk? (2005-2007). Borrow Foundation. Co-investigator.
Fluoride biomarkers: urine, saliva, nail and hair (2003). Oral & Dental Research.
Development of Gold Standard Methods for Fluoride Analysis (2003-2008). National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Project number IR21DE014716 -01. (Principal Investigator; Dr EA Martinez-Meir,University of Indiana, USA). Collaborating centres: Brazil, Chile, Ireland, Thailand, UK and US (Iowa, California, Georgia). Co-investigator.
Bioavailability of Fluoride in Drinking Water - A Human Experimental Study (2003). Department of Health. Co-investigator.
Please contact me by email in the first instance if you are interested in any of the above.
Vida is an expert on methods for assessment of renal fluoride excretion in community prevention programmes for oral health and has contributed her expertise to the fluoridated milk monitoring exercise, in St Helens – Merseyside, to measure the impact of drinking milk containing 0.8mg F/189 ml milk on urinary fluoride excretion of three year old children in 2013. She was the lead author of the monitoring exercise report for the National Fluoridated Milk Group (NFMG). She also provided a consultancy role for Blackpool City Council for a fluoride monitoring survey in May 2015. As an invited speaker, she has delivered several seminars and lectures for those who are involved in fluoridated milk schemes at schools.
She is also an expert on fluoride analysis of different biological and non-biological samples including food and drink products. She has been invited to run several training courses on the topic for industry and had a key role in a project for the UK ‘Food & Environment Research Agency (fera)’ in which more than 250 food and drink samples were analysed for their fluoride concentrations for the Food Safety Authority Ireland. She has developed a unique fluoride database which provides information on fluoride concentrations of the most commonly consumed food and drink items in the UK (https://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/DocRepo/Research/FinalFluorideDatabase.pdf).
She led a project for ‘Johnson & Johnson’ to test the potential benefit of the combined use of a fluoridated toothpaste and a fluoridated mouthwash.
Vida currently teaches on the Doctorate of Public Health programme and supervises a number of PhD students.
She has delivered invited lectures at several different institutes, including:&nbsp; Indiana University/USA, Harbin Commerce University/China, University of Glasgow/Scotland and Sao-Paulo University/Brazil.
She has been running several training courses on fluoride analysis for industry as well as seminars/lectures for public/oral health professionals.
Member of the Fluoride Research Group, Newcastle University, 2007 to date.
Are there good reasons for the fluoride labelling of food and drink?
Zohoori, F. & Maguire, A., 23 Feb 2018, In : British Dental Journal.. 224, 4, p. 215-217 3 p.