Julian Fisher BDS, MSc, MIH

Julian Fisher, Director of Oral and Planetary Health Policies within the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health, is a leading authority in oral and planetary health at an international level. He has held numerous consultancies with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Education Cultural and Scientific Organization, and the United Nations Environment Program. He is Director of the German-based nongovernmental organization, Zero Water Day Partnership.

As Director of Oral and Planetary Health Policies, a key aspect to his work is to support oral health in all policies approaches, which recognize that population oral health is not merely a product of health sector programs but largely determined by policies that guide actions beyond the health sector.

He has a decade-long engagement with WHO UNEP Minamata Convention on Mercury and the shift to less invasive and environmentally friendly dentistry. He helped initiate the first sustainability in healthcare and education event held during COP26 Climate Change Summit in 2021, which has established a platform for oral health at subsequent Climate Change Summit conferences.

Julian has been a member of several US National Academy of Medicine working groups, including Health and Environment, and was a member of the committee that developed a Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health. He is co-editor of the forthcoming WHO Starter Guide on Integrating the Social Determinants of Health into Health Workforce Education and Training.

The WHO Resolution on Oral health grounds oral health in the United Nations 2023 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2021, Julian has hosted the Global Oral Health Education Module. The module engages over 25 dental schools around the world and introduces them to macro concepts, such as One Health and Planetary Health. It also seeks to prepare students for the impact of climate change on dental practice and oral healthcare, give them opportunities to learn with and from others, and introduce them to recent innovations and new ways of thinking.

Selected Publications

• Planetary health benefits from strengthening health workforce education on the social determinants of health
• WHO publication Strengthening the collection, analysis and use of health workforce data and information
• US National Academy of Medicine Perspectives Achieving oral health for all through public health approaches, interprofessional, and transdisciplinary education
• Zero Water Day: seizing the opportunity from a public health perspective