Richard Watt is Director of Research, Development and Innovation at Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust and Professor and Honorary Consultant in Dental Public Health at UCL. In 2019 he was appointed as Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Oral Health Inequalities and Public Health at UCL.

After qualifying as a dentist from the University of Edinburgh he worked in the NHS community dental service and then studied for a MSc and PhD in Dental Public Health at UCL. For the past 28 years he has been an academic in the UCL Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. He is currently leading a NIHR funded trial evaluating a community based parenting intervention.

Research interests include:

  • Understanding the underlying causes of (oral) health inequalities
  • Development and evaluation of community-based health improvement interventions
  • Association between oral and general health through common risk factor approach
  • Evidence base for legislative and regulatory policies to promote health

Selectied publications:

  • Batty GD, Zaninotto P, Watt RG, Bell S. (2017). Associations of pet ownership with biomarkers of ageing: population based cohort study. British Medical Journal 13;359:j5558.
  • Watt RG, Mathur M, Aida J, Bonecker M, Venturelli R, Gansky, S. (2018). Oral health disparities in children – a canary in the coalmine? Pediatric Clinics of North America. 65:965-979
  • Peres M, Macpherson LM, Weyant RJ, Daly B, Venturelli R, Mathur MR, Listl S, Celeste RK, Guarnizo-Herreño CC, Kearns C, Benzian H, Allison P, Watt RG. (2019). Oral diseases: a global public health challenge. The Lancet 394:249-259
  • Watt RG, Daly B, Allison P, Macpherson LM, Venturelli R, Listl S, Weyant RJ, Mathur MR, Guarnizo-Herreño CC, Kearns C, Celeste RK, Peres M, Benzian H. (2019). Ending the neglect of global oral health - time for radical action The Lancet 394:261-272.
  • Watt RG, Venturelli R, Daly B (2019). Understanding and tackling oral health inequalities in vulnerable adult populations: from the margins to the mainstream. British Dental Journal 227(1):49-54.

Further details of his academic work can be found online.