About Us

The BigMouth Project

The BigMouth Project is a significant collaborative initiative aimed at gathering and leveraging data from thousands or more individuals residing in the United States. Our primary objective is to enhance oral health outcomes through the collective data we gather.

Our mission is to expand the range of dental information available, enabling researchers to explore potential correlations among various health factors across different regions of the country. To support and advance dental research, we utilize specific data points.

By bringing together a diverse range of dental data, we strive to facilitate a deeper understanding of oral health and contribute to the overall improvement of dental research.

Explore the Dental Institutions Engaged in the BigMouth Project

Numerous dental institutions have enthusiastically joined the BigMouth initiative, contributing to the growth and enrichment of our existing database. These institutions actively input their own data, making it accessible to all BigMouth participants. The comprehensive dataset within BigMouth encompasses contributions from multiple dental institutions and is securely hosted at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

We eagerly anticipate the involvement of new participants who will further enhance our data repository. Presently, the following institutions are actively engaged in the project:

• UTHealth | School of Dentistry
• Harvard | School of Dental Medicine
• Tufts University | School of Dental Medicine
• The University of California, San Francisco | School of Dentistry
• The University of Pittsburgh | School of Dental Medicine
• The University of Michigan | School of Dentistry
• University of Colorado | School of Dental Medicine
• Loma Linda University | School of Dentistry
• University of Buffalo | School of Dental Medicine
• The University of Iowa | College of Dentistry
• The University of Minnesota | School of Dentistry
• Marquette University | School of Dentistry
• Texas Tech University | Woody L. Hunt School of Dental Medicine

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is BigMouth?

  BigMouth is a centralized oral health data repository derived from electronic health records (EHRs) at multiple dental schools. With demographic, medical history, and dental data on over 4 million patients, this oral health database is available for research and the advancement of evidence-based dentistry.

• Who are the participating institutions?

  Please visit this page to see a list of our Participating Institutions.

• What does axiUm folder contain?

  The axiUm node contains the (user's) site specific terminologies. Users can query for data available in axiUm at their own site. The number displayed adjacent to each folder/leaf node represents the number of patients.

  • Demographics: contains age, gender, and race/ethnicity. User can query age by value with the following operators: <, >, ≥, ≤, =, between.
  • Diagnosis: contains Dental Diagnostic System (DDS) terminologies, formerly known as the EZCodes diagnostic terminology. User can query a diagnosis with or without date range.
  • Forms: contains medical, dental history of patients, and caries risk assessment. In addition, each site may have other specific forms. User can query a form question with or without date range.
  • Insurance: contains the names of insurance companies that insure patients.
  • Odontogram: contains existing materials, existing conditions on a specified tooth or surface and the total number of missing teeth.
  • Perio: contains clinical periodontal parameters which could be queried by examination types (e.g. initial examination, re-evaluation examination). ' Medication: contains prescription and patient's current medication information and can be queried with or without date range.
  • Practice: contains details about the different practices in a site.
  • Procedures: contains Dental Procedure Codes (CDT) and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) procedures which could be queried with or without date range.
  • Providers: contains different dental health providers such as dental student, dentist, resident etc.
• How is the age calculated?

  Age is calculated from the date of patient's last recorded observation (procedure, diagnosis etc.).

• What does the Combined Terms folder contain?

  This folder provides an integrated terminology system that allows users to query for data from all schools that contribute data to BigMouth.

  • Demographics: contains age, gender, and race/ethnicity from all schools.
  • Diagnosis: contains Dental Diagnostic System (DDS) terminologies from HARVARD, UCSF, UTH, LLU, UB, UCD, UIOWA, UMN, and UMICH.
  • Forms: contains medical and dental history from all schools. The combined BigMouth terminology contains caries risk assessment from all schools.
  • Odontogram: contains existing materials, existing conditions on a specified tooth or surface, and the total number of missing teeth from all schools.
  • Perio: contains clinical periodontal parameters from all schools.
  • Procedures: contains CDT and CPT procedures from all schools.
  • Providers: contains different dental health providers from all schools.
• Where is the Race/ethnicity standard derived from?

  Race/ethnicity standard derived based on NIH guidelines.