Professor J. Tim Newton

Biography

Tim Newton is Professor of Psychology as Applied to Dentistry at King’s College London Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences. He also holds Honorary Consultant Health Psychologist positions with Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and The Office of the Chief Dental Officer, and is Honorary Professor of Psychology at University College London.

In 2016 Tim was awarded the Behavioural, Epidemiological and Health Services Research Distinguished Scientist Award by the International Association of Dental Research. He is an honorary member of the British Orthodontic Society and was the Webb Johnson Lecturer, Royal College of Surgeons of England, as well as the Otago Community Trust visiting professor of dentistry, University of Otago.

A founder member of the King’s Dental Institute Health Psychology Service, Professor Newton allocates 50% of his week to clinical commitments. In particular providing Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to support individuals with dental phobia to overcome their fear, and support for individual’s facing challenging dental procedures. The wider service provides psychological support for individuals with chronic oro-facial pain as well as other long term oral conditions.

Professor Newton's research interests lie particularly in theory based interventions to change behaviour in relation to oral health and the management of dental anxiety and phobia. His research in the area of behaviour change focuses largely on the design, implementation and testing of brief interventions to enhance the oral health behaviour of  patients attending primary dental care settings, in particular the feasibility and acceptability of such interventions. Dental Phobia is common in adult and child populations – with approximately 10% of all people affected by dental phobia worldwide, and a further 30% displaying moderate anxiety when attending the dentist. Tim has designed and championed a proportionate intervention model for dental anxiety and phobia, which has been widely disseminated – training in the KCL model of dental anxiety management is available (https://www1.kcl.ac.uk/prospectus/shortcourses/list/keyword/dentistry).

He is committed to ensuring that research is of the highest scientific and ethical standards in protection of the rights of research participants and the wider public served by the research community. In pursuance of this he is Chair of the King’s College London Research Ethics Committee (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/support/research-ethics/index.aspx).

Professor Newton is Trustee of two charities. He is Vice Chair of Hammersmith & Fulham MIND – dedicated to improving the mental well being of the people of that area of London. He is also Trustee of the Alliance for a Cavity Free Future – a global charity committed to talking the world’s most prevalent disease, through promoting integrated clinical and public health action to confront the disease burden resulting from untreated caries (www.acffglobal.org).