Dr. Rosamund Harrison is an internationally recognized leader in the field of pediatric dentistry and early childhood oral health promotion. She is a champion for improved oral health of children in low-income, new immigrant and Indigenous communities.

Childhood dental disease can affect growth, development, and is particularly detrimental in medically-fragile children. With much of her academic career at UBC, Harrison enhanced education in pediatric dentistry while her community service and research, informed dental and medical communities and healthcare policy decision-makers about the consequences of poor oral health in early childhood.

She advocated for the reduction of oral health disparities among the province’s low-income, new immigrant and Indigenous children through her participation with various organizations, such as the B.C. Dental Association’s Access to Care and Children’s Dentistry Task Force committees. Working with community she helped establish east Vancouver’s Strathcona Dental Clinic.

Her community-based research with Vietnamese and South Asian communities and Indigenous communities in B.C. and Canada has shown that language-specific and culturally-sensitive dental health counselling — delivered by community members — can improve children’s oral health.

In the early 2000’s she was a driving force, with colleagues at BC Children’s Hospital, in the “Brighter Smiles” Project. A Ministry of Health initiative to enhance Indigenous community awareness, it brought oral health education to the families of Hartley Bay, a remote Gitga’at community on B.C.’s north coast after the community identified children’s dental health as its priority need.

She has been involved in service to many organizations including the Commission for Dental Accreditation (Canada), the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the British Columbia Society of Pediatric Dentists, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the Canadian Dental Association, and the British Columbia Dental Association. She spearheaded efforts to establish the third graduate program in pediatric dentistry in Canada, demonstrating her commitment to training and mentoring the next generation of dentists specializing in the dental care of children and those with special health care needs.

In recognition of her health promotion research and activities, Harrison and colleagues received the Canadian Dental Association’s Oral Health Promotion Award and she was granted honorary membership in the B.C. Dental Association, the association’s highest and most significant honour. For excellence as an educator, she was awarded a UBC Teaching Excellence Award and also the 3M-ESPE-ACFD National Dental Teaching Award.