Daniel Erchick
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Public Health & Epidemiology
More than half of the 2.3 million newborns who died in their first month in 2022 were born small or vulnerable: preterm, small for their gestational age, or of low birth weight. Rates are highest in South Asia, and progress has stalled.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
periodontal disease
gingival inflammation
oral health
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2030
What they work on
- Determine whether an early-pregnancy oral health package with antiseptic rinse, exams, hygiene training and supplies lowers the rate of small vulnerable newborns in a cluster-randomized trial of 2,280 pregnancies in rural Nepal.
- Measure the package's separate effects on preterm birth, small-for-gestational-age birth and low birth weight, assessed within 72 hours of delivery.
- Explore links between gum inflammation and circulating inflammation and newborn size and timing by analyzing blood, gingival crevicular fluid and plaque collected in early and late pregnancy from 200 women.
More about the research
Gum disease in pregnant women has been linked to these outcomes in observational studies. Trials that treated gum disease have given mixed results, often because they started late in pregnancy or did not clear the infection. This project tests whether a simple, low-cost oral health package started early in pregnancy can reduce these births.
Why it matters
If effective, a cheap package of oral exams, antiseptic rinse, hygiene instruction and dental supplies could reduce preterm, small-for-gestational-age and low birth weight births. Such births raise the risk of newborn death and poor growth. This matters most for families in rural South Asia, where small vulnerable newborns are common and neonatal mortality remains high. The trial could also give health programs clearer evidence on whether to include prenatal oral care.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Michel Guillot
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Collect prospective data at four surveillance sites across India to explain why stillbirth and neonatal death rates and their age patterns are unusually high, examining variation by gestational age and sex.
Steve Taylor
Duke University, NC·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether parasite overexpression of mutant Pfsa3 (PF3D7_1127000), a putative protein phosphatase, nullifies sickle trait's protection, by engineering transgenic Plasmodium falciparum lines expressing wildtype and mutant forms.
Shaoping Zhang
University of Iowa, IA·Microbiology & Immunology
Define how a type I interferon (IFN-I)–IL-27 pathway controls the inflammatory IL-17–neutrophil axis in a mouse model of periodontitis, a gum disease that destroys tooth-supporting bone.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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