Exploring Concepts of Understanding in the Working Practice of Speech and Language Therapists in the UK: A Preliminary Survey.

Oral diseases affect millions of people worldwide and can cause severe functional impairment, chronic pain, and disfigurement (Peres et al. ). Among them, oral cancer is one of the most serious conditions of the oral cavity, with high morbidity and mortality, particularly when diagnosed at advanced stages (Omar ; Warnakulasuriya ). Beyond the immediate threat to life, these diseases can also limit the ability to speak, eat, and socialize, ultimately reducing quality of life (WHO ). Alcohol drinking is one of the leading risk factors in the global disease burden (Lim et al. ). In particular, observational studies and meta‐analyses highlighted its impact on different types of oral cancer (Turati et al. ) and other oral health outcomes (Kusu et al. ). However, while growing evidence highlights that no amount of alcohol drinking can be considered safe (Barbería‐Latasa et al. ), there is limited information regarding the oral‐health risk associated with different patterns of alcohol consumption. Because a large proportion of worldwide populations drink alcohol at least in small quantities (Bryazka et al. ), understanding the dynamics linking different alcohol drinking patterns to negative oral health outcomes has major public health implications and can contribute to defining evidence‐based recommendations. To our knowledge, no study has systematically investigated alcohol drinking patterns with respect to different types of oral cancer and other oral health outcomes. Mendelian randomization (MR) is a powerful design to rapidly gain insights regarding possible direct effects between exposures and outcomes of interest, leveraging genetic information as instrumental variables (Sanderson et al. ). Data from large‐scale genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) of different alcohol drinking patterns and oral health outcomes are available from large biobanks and international consortia, including UK Biobank (UKB) (Bycroft et al. ), Million Veteran Program (MVP) (Gaziano et al. ), FinnGen Project (Kurki et al. ), the GWAS & Sequencing Consortium of Alcohol and Nicotine use (GSCAN) (Saunders et al. ), and the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) Consortium (Lesseur et al. ). To account for possible confounders affecting our findings, we used multiple MR approaches to assess the effect of alcohol drinking patterns on oral cancer and other oral health outcomes. Additionally, because there is a complex interplay between alcohol consumption, socioeconomic factors, and human health (Collins ; Probst et al. ), we performed a multivariable MR analysis to model the direct effect of alcohol drinking patterns on oral health, accounting for indirect relationships related to household income.