Search

Objectives: In celebration of the journal's 50th anniversary, the aim of the study was to review the whole collection of Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology (CDOE) publications from 1973 to 2022 and provide a complete overview of the main publication characteristics. Methods: The study used bibliometric techniques such as performance and science mapping analysis of 3428 articles extracted from the Scopus database. The data were analysed using the 'Bibliometrix' package in R. The journal's scientific production was examined, along with the yearly citation count, the distribution of publications based on authors, the corresponding author's country and affiliation and citation count, citing source and keywords. Bibliometric network maps were constructed to determine the conceptual, intellectual and social collaborative structure over the past 50 years. The trending research topics and themes were identified. Results: The total number of articles and average citations has increased over the years. D Locker, AJ Spencer, A Sheiham and WM Thomson were the most frequently published authors, and PE Petersen, GD Slade and AI Ismail published papers with the highest citations. The most published countries were the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil and Canada, frequently engaging in collaborative efforts. The most common keywords used were 'dental caries', 'oral epidemiology' and 'oral health'. The trending topics were healthcare and health disparities, social determinants of health, systematic review and health inequalities. Epidemiology, oral health and disparities were highly researched areas. Conclusion: This bibliometric study reviews CDOE's significant contribution to dental public health by identifying key research trends, themes, influential authors and collaborations. The findings provide insights into the need to increase publications from developing countries, improve gender diversity in authorship and broaden the scope of research themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Research on racial oral health inequities has relied on individual-level data with the premise being that the unequal distribution of dental diseases is an intractable problem. We address these insufficiencies by examining the relationships between structural racism, structural sexism, state-level income inequality, and edentulism-related racial inequities according to a structural intersectionality approach.Methods: Data were from two sources, the 2010 survey of the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and Patricia Homan et al.'s (2021) study on the health impacts from interlocking systems of oppression. While the first contains information on edentulism from a large probabilistic sample of older (65+) respondents, the second provides estimates of racism, sexism, and income inequality across the US states. Taking into account a range of individual characteristics and contextual factors in multilevel models, we determine the extent to which structural forms of marginalization underlie racial inequities in edentulism.Results: Our analysis reveals that structural racism, structural sexism, and state-level income inequality are associated with the overall frequency of edentulism and the magnitude of edentulism-related racial inequities, both individually and intersectionally. Coupled with living in states with both high racism and sexism (but not income inequality), the odds of edentulism were 60% higher among non-Hispanic Blacks, relative to Whites residing where these structural oppressions were at their lowest.Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that racial oral health inequities cannot be disentangled from social forces that differentially allocate power and resources among population groups. Mitigating race-based inequities in oral health entails dismantling the multifaceted systems of oppression in the contemporary U.S. society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Social determinants drive disparities in dental visiting. Disparities can be measured simply by comparing outcomes between groups (inequality) but can also consider concepts of social justice or fairness (inequity). This study aimed to assess differences in dental visiting in the United States in terms of both social inequality and inequity. Methods: Data were obtained from a cross-sectional study—the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2015–2016, and participants were US adults aged 30+ years. The outcome of interest, use of oral health care services, was measured in terms of dental visiting in the past 12 months. Disparity was operationalized through education and income. Other characteristics included age, gender, race/ethnicity, main language, country of birth, citizenship and oral health status. To characterize existing inequality in dental service use, we examined bivariate relationships using indices of inequality: the absolute and relative concentration index (ACI and RCI), the slope index of inequality (SII) and relative index of inequality (RII) and through concentration curves (CC). Indirect standardization with a non-linear model was used to measure inequity. Results: A total of 4745 US adults were included. Bivariate analysis showed a gradient by both education and income in dental visiting, with a higher proportion (> 60%) of those with lower educational attainment /lower income having not visited a dentist. The concentration curves showed pro-higher education and income inequality. All measures of absolute and relative indices were negative, indicating that from lower to higher socioeconomic position (education and income), the prevalence of no dental visiting decreased: ACI and RCI estimates were approximately 8% and 20%, while SII and RII estimates were 50% and 30%. After need-standardization, the group with the highest educational level had nearly 2.5 times- and the highest income had near three times less probability of not having a dental visit in the past 12 months than those with the lowest education and income, respectively. Conclusion: The findings indicate that use of oral health care is threatened by existing social inequalities and inequities, disproportionately burdening disadvantaged populations. Efforts to reduce both oral health inequalities and inequities must start with action in the social, economic and policy spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To conduct cross-national comparison of education-based inequalities in tooth loss across Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the United States. Methods We used nationally representative data from Australia's National Survey of Adult Oral Health; Canadian Health Measures Survey; Chile's First National Health Survey Ministry of Health; US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; and the New Zealand Oral Health Survey. We examined the prevalence of edentulism, the proportion of individuals having <21 teeth and the mean number of teeth present. We used education as a measure of socioeconomic position and measured absolute and relative inequalities. We used random-effects meta-analysis to summarize inequality estimates. Results The USA showed the widest absolute and relative inequality in edentulism prevalence, whereas Chile demonstrated the largest absolute and relative social inequality gradient for the mean number of teeth present. Australia had the narrowest absolute and relative inequality gap for proportion of individuals having <21 teeth. Pooled estimates showed substantial heterogeneity for both absolute and relative inequality measures. Conclusions There is a considerable variation in the magnitude of inequalities in tooth loss across the countries included in this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Socioeconomic inequalities are associated with oral health status, either subjectively (self-rated oral health) or objectively (clinically-diagnosed dental diseases). The aim of this study is to compare the magnitude of socioeconomic inequality in oral health and dental disease among adults in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States (US). Methods: Nationally-representative survey examination data were used to calculate adjusted absolute differences (AD) in prevalence of untreated decay and fair/poor self-rated oral health (SROH) in income and education. We pooled age- and gender-adjusted inequality estimates using random effects meta-analysis. Results: New Zealand demonstrated the highest adjusted estimate for untreated decay; the US showed the highest adjusted prevalence of fair/poor SROH. The meta-analysis showed little heterogeneity across countries for the prevalence of decayed teeth; the pooled ADs were 19.7 (95% CI = 16.7–22.7) and 12.0 (95% CI = 8.4–15.7) between highest and lowest education and income groups, respectively. There was heterogeneity in the mean number of decayed teeth and in fair/poor SROH. New Zealand had the widest inequality in decay (education AD = 0.8; 95% CI = 0.4–1.2; income AD = 1.0; 95% CI = 0.5–1.5) and the US the widest inequality in fair/poor SROH (education AD = 40.4; 95% CI = 35.2–45.5; income AD = 20.5; 95% CI = 13.0–27.9). Conclusions: The differences in estimates, and variation in the magnitude of inequality, suggest the need for further examining socio-cultural and contextual determinants of oral health and dental disease in both the included and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess the quality and accuracy of information contained within the websites of providers of marketed orthodontic products., Materials and Methods: Twenty-one websites of orthodontic appliance and adjunct (product) providers were identified. The website content was assessed via two validated quality-of-information instruments (DISCERN and the Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA] benchmarks) and an accuracy-of-information instrument. Website content was qualitatively analyzed for themes and subthemes., Results: More than half (n = 11; 52.3%) of the assessed websites contained clinician testimonials. The mean (SD) DISCERN score was 33.14 (5.44). No website recorded the minimum of three JAMA benchmarks required to indicate reliability. The most common content themes related to quality-of-life impact and treatment duration. Just 8% of the statements within the websites were objectively true. The Pearson correlation coefficient indicated that the DISCERN scores were correlated with the accuracy-of-information scores (r = .83; P < .001)., Conclusions: The quality and accuracy of information contained within the websites of the providers of marketed orthodontic products was poor. The combined use of DISCERN and the accuracy-of-information instrument may help overcome the shortcomings of each. Clinicians should check the accuracy of information on orthodontic product provider websites before adding links to those websites on their own sites., (© 2024 by The EH Angle Education and Research Foundation, Inc.)

Knowledge of and practice around health inequities have been limited by scarce investigations on intersecting forms of structural oppression, including the extent to which their effects are more severe among multiply marginalized groups. We addressed these insufficiencies by adopting a structural intersectionality approach to the study of edentulism (i.e., complete tooth loss), the dental equivalent of mortality. While individual information was gathered from approximately 200,000 adult (ages 18-64 years) respondents to the 2010 US Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, state-level data for 2000 and 2010 were obtained from a 2021 study by Homan et al. (J Health Soc Behav. 2021;62(3):350-370) and the US Census. These 3 sources provided information on edentulism, race, sex, structural racism, structural sexism, and income inequality, in addition to multiple covariates. Analyses showed that the intersections between structural sexism and state-level income inequality and structural racism were associated with 1.4 (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.9) and 1.5 (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 2.2) times' increased odds of complete tooth loss, respectively. The frequency of edentulism was highest among non-Hispanic Black men residing in states with high structural racism, high structural sexism, and high economic inequality. Based on these and other findings, we highlight the importance of a structural intersectionality approach to research and policy related to health inequities in the United States and elsewhere., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

This review of the oral health of children in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA demonstrates that significant oral health inequalities exist in each nation. Despite traditionally low levels of disease in Indigenous communities, dental caries is now highly prevalent and of increased severity among Indigenous children in comparison to their non-Indigenous counterparts. Early childhood caries is particularly prevalent. The high level of dental disease experience at an early age is associated with increased rates of general anaesthesia and greater risk of dental caries in later life. The rates and severity of dental caries experienced by young Indigenous children are even more alarming when we consider that dental caries is essentially a preventable disease. The success of specific preventive programmes is encouraging; these approaches should be further evaluated and implemented as part of broader health promotion programmes for Indigenous children and families in order to decrease current oral health disparities., (© 2010 The Authors. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health © 2010 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (Royal Australasian College of Physicians).)

This overview revealed that substantial oral health inequalities exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous child and adult populations in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, with evidence suggesting that these inequalities are increasing. Despite the marked differences in geography, culture, language and history experienced by these groups, it is notable how similar the oral health inequalities were. A number of reasons are discussed in the paper.