Dr Shady Abdelsalam

Dr Shady Abdelsalam is a PhD candidate at NDRI, who started his doctoral degree in August 2021. Shady is an AHPRA-registered Oral Surgery Specialist with a passion for oral health and research, with cross cultural experience in the domains of dentistry, oral surgery, public health and research. His interest in research led him to Australia to pursue a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree at La Trobe University, which he completed with a Course WAM of 82.21% (A), in addition to being awarded the Career Ready Advantage Award - Silver Level, in December 2020. His MPH research project, a quantitative examination of the different factors affecting the oral health of participants in the SuperMIX cohort of people who inject drugs, culminated in both the successful submission of a minor thesis (First Class Honours) and the publication of the corresponding manuscript "The association between depression and oral health related quality of life in people who inject drugs" in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Prior to commencing his PhD in 2021, Shady worked as a research officer with NDRI, investigating the oral health of the VMAX cohort of methamphetamine users, via systematic review and quantitative analysis methods, in collaboration with the AOD Group at Burnet Institute. This culminated in the publication of the manuscript “Correlates of poor oral health related quality of life in a cohort of people who use methamphetamine in Australia” in the journal BMC Oral Health. His PhD project is titled “The impact of medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) utilisation on health outcomes in people who inject drugs”.