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Background: The first steps towards gender equity in science are measuring the magnitude of inequity and increasing awareness of the problem. Objectives: To describe trends in gender disparities in first and last authorship in the most cited dental publications and general dental literature over a 20‐year period. Methods: Articles and bibliometric data were retrieved from the Scopus database for the period 1996 to 2015. Two groups of 1000 articles each were retrieved: a random sample and another sample of top‐cited articles for each year. The gender of the first and last author of each publication was manually identified. When this was not possible, we used an online software platform (https://genderize.io/). Descriptive analyses identified the proportion of women first and last authors in both samples, stratifying by dental discipline and geographic region. Trends were ascertained by frequency metrics across years. Gender disparity was observed in both first and last authorship, with a larger gap being observed in the top‐cited sample. Results: Women led 28.4% and 20.3% of articles in the random and top‐cited samples, respectively. A similar pattern was observed for the last authorship group (22.1% and 16.1%, respectively). An increasing trend in the proportion of articles led by women over time was observed in both samples. This increase was larger in the top‐cited sample (from 15.0% in 1996–2000 to 25.1% in 2015) than in the random sample (from 26.3% in 1996–2000 to 33.2% in 2011). Conclusions: Clear gender disparities in dental research publications in the last 20 years were identified in both general and top‐cited manuscripts, across dental disciplines, across countries, across first and last authorship, and over time. It is paramount that actions are taken to attract, retain and promote women in science, as well as to monitor and ensure progress towards gender equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study developed predictive models for one‐week acute and six‐month persistent pain following root canal treatment (RCT). An additional aim was to study the gain in predictive efficacy of models containing clinical factors only, over models containing sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: A secondary data analysis of 708 patients who received RCTs was conducted. Three sets of predictors were used: (1) combined set, containing all predictors in the data set; (2) clinical set and (3) sociodemographic set. Missing data were handled by multiple imputation using the missing indicator method. The multilevel least absolute selection and shrinkage operator (LASSO) regression was used to select predictors into the final multilevel logistic models. Three measures, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) and precision‐recall curve (AUPRC) and calibration curves, were used to assess the predictive performance of the models. Results: The selected‐in factors in the final models, using LASSO regression, are related to pre‐ and intra‐treatment clinical symptoms and pain experience. Predictive performance of the models remained the same with the inclusion (exclusion) of the socio‐demographic factors. For predicting one‐week outcome, the model built with combined set of predictors yielded the highest AUROC and AUPRC of 0.85 and 0.72, followed by the models built with clinical factors (AUROC = 0.82, AUPRC = 0.66). The lowest predictive ability was found in models with only sociodemographic characteristics (AUROC = 0.68, AUPRC = 0.40). Similar patterns were observed in predicting six‐month outcome, where the AUROC for models with combined, clinical and sociodemographic sets of predictors were 0.85, 0.89 and 0.66, respectively, and the AUPRC were 0.48, 0.53 and 0.22, respectively. Conclusions: Clinical factors such as the severity and experience of pre‐operative and intra‐operative pain were discovered important to the subsequent development of pain following RCTs. Adding sociodemographic characteristics to the models with clinical factors did not change the models' predictive performance or the proportion of explained variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to document the disparity in dental caries experiences among indigenous and nonindigenous populations globally by measuring dental caries prevalence and severity. An electronic database (MEDLINE) was initially searched using relevant keywords. This was followed by use of the search string in the following electronic databases: Scopus, EBSCOhost, Cochrane, and Open Grey. Two independent reviewers conducted the study search and screening, quality assessment, and data extraction, which was facilitated using JBI SUMARI software. The primary outcome was the decayed missing filled teeth (DMFT) score and dental caries prevalence. Subgroup analysis was done by country of publication to identify causes of heterogeneity. Forest plots were used with the standardized mean difference (SMD) and publication bias was assessed using the Egger test with funnel plot construction. For the final review, 43 articles were selected and 34 were meta-analyzed. The pooled mean DMFT for both the permanent dentition (SMD = 0.26; 95% CI 0.13-0.39) and deciduous dentition (SMD = 0.67; 95% CI 0.47-0.87) was higher for the Indigenous population than for the general population. Indigenous populations experienced more decayed teeth (SMD = 0.44; 95% CI 0.25-0.62), a slightly higher number of missing teeth (SMD = 0.11< 95% CI -0.05 to 0.26), and lesser filled teeth (SMD = -0.04; 95% CI -0.20 to 0.13) than their nonindigenous counterparts. The prevalence of dental caries (SMD = 0.27; 95% CI 0.13-0.41) was higher among indigenous people. Globally, indigenous populations have a higher caries prevalence and severity than nonindigenous populations. The factors which have led to such inequities need to be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]