Improving children's use of care in Oregon: The role of a novel dental accountable care organization.

Background: Despite lowering financial barriers to oral health care through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, income-related access-to-care disparities remain, especially in Oregon. The authors examined the role of a novel dental care organization, the Willamette Dental Group (WDG), in addressing the nonfinancial barriers to oral health care that keep access-to-care disparities in place.

Methods: This longitudinal observational study used dental claims and enrollment data from the Oregon Health Plan from 2014 through 2021.

Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Oral Health Behavior Social Support (OHBSS) Scales in English and Spanish for Mexican-origin young adults.

Background: Valid, reliable measures of psychosocial constructs are needed in oral health research. This study quantitatively evaluated the psychometric properties of nine new Oral Health Behavior Social Support (OHBSS) scales, which measured support for three oral health behaviors (brushing, flossing, dental care), queried for each of three sources (family, health providers, others/friends).

Methods: Young Mexican-origin adults in the southwestern United States-Mexico border region completed an online survey, in English or Spanish (N = 502).

Impact of survey item wording on reported tobacco use among youth: effect of adding 'even one or two puffs' to use questions.

Having ever used tobacco is a key surveillance metric. Existing tobacco use survey items differ in their inclusion of minimal use language, such as "even one or two puffs." This study aimed to quantify how minimal use language affects tobacco ever use prevalence estimated from adolescent surveys.

Development of new bilingual oral health behavior social support (OHBSS) scales in English and Spanish.

This paper describes the simultaneous co-development of Oral Health Behavior Social Support (OHBSS) scales in English and Spanish. OHBSS scales assess social support for toothbrushing, flossing, and dental care utilization, which are targets for interpersonal-level interventions to promote oral health among Hispanic/Latino adults. The focus was on Mexican-origin adults, who comprise the largest United States Hispanic/Latino subgroup and experience a high oral disease burden.

Inequitable exposure to tobacco product litter among adolescents in California, USA.

Introduction: Tobacco waste is a costly, widespread blight and environmental toxicant that is not distributed equally across geographical areas. This investigation reports on the prevalence of noticing tobacco litter and potential inequities in tobacco litter exposure among adolescents in California, USA.

Methods: Data from the 2023 Teens, Nicotine, and Tobacco (TNT) Online Survey (N=4910), a statewide, online cross-sectional survey of California adolescents aged 12-17 years, were analyzed for the self-reported frequency of noticing tobacco product litter.

Parent-Targeted Oral Health Text Messaging for Underserved Children Attending Pediatric Clinics: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Caries is the most common chronic childhood disease, with substantial health disparities.

Objective: To test whether parent-targeted oral health text (OHT) messages outperform child wellness text (CWT) messages on pediatric caries increment and oral health behaviors among underserved children attending pediatric well-child visits.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The parallel randomized clinical trial, Interactive Parent-Targeted Text Messaging in Pediatric Clinics to Reduce Caries Among Urban Children (iSmile), included participants who were recruited during pediatric medical clinic visits at 4 sites in Boston, Massachusetts, that serve low-income and racially and ethnically diverse (herein, underserved) populations.

Flavored Tobacco Product Use Among California Adolescents Before and Immediately After a Statewide Flavor Ban.

Introduction: In December 2022, a California law banned the retail sale of most flavored tobacco products (including e-cigarettes). This investigation evaluates adolescents' use of flavored tobacco before and after enactment.

Aims And Methods: The Teens Nicotine and Tobacco Project included online surveys of California adolescents (age 12-17) in 2022 (N = 5127) and 2023 (N = 5015) that assessed past 30-day use of various tobacco products, flavored product use, and perceived access to flavored e-cigarettes.

Cost-effectiveness analysis design for interventions to prevent children's oral disease.

Introduction: In 2015, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) launched the Multidisciplinary Collaborative Research Consortium to Reduce Oral Health Disparities in Children, supporting four randomized trials testing strategies to improve preventive care. A Coordinating Center provides scientific expertise, data acquisition and quality assurance services, safety monitoring, and final analysis-ready datasets. This paper describes the trials' economic analysis strategies, placing these strategies within the broader context of contemporary economic analysis methods.

Census tract geospatial analysis comparing social determinants of health with tooth loss in California seniors: An ecologic study.

Objectives: Individual-level social determinant of health (SDOH) measures alone may insufficiently explain disparities in edentulism among seniors. Therefore, the authors examined the correlation of census tract-level SDOH and residential racial segregation measures with edentulism in Californian adults aged ≥65 years old.

Methods: Explanatory variables were obtained from Healthy Places Index (HPI), the National Cancer Institute and diversitydatakids.

Perceived discrimination and youth vaping: The role of intersectional identities.

Introduction: Electronic cigarettes (also termed e-cigarette or vapes) often contain nicotine, an addictive psychoactive substance, which can have harmful effects during adolescence. Frequent experiences of discrimination are one risk factor shown to increase susceptibility to tobacco use, especially for individuals that identify as a social minority. Applying Intersectionality Theory, this research examined the relationship between youth experiences of discrimination and vape use at the intersection of race/ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Patterns in Tobacco, E-Cigarette, and Cannabis Advertising Exposure Among California Adolescents and Associations With Future Use Expectations.

Background: Exposure to tobacco, e-cigarette, or cannabis marketing is associated with adolescent use. Few studies have examined advertising exposure prevalence and patterns across these products concurrently.

Methods: This study assessed past 30-day recalled exposure to promotional messages about tobacco, e-cigarettes ("vapes" on the survey), and cannabis ("marijuana") from various sources among California adolescents (ages 12-17) in the 2022 Teens, Nicotine, and Tobacco Online Survey ( = 2530).

Among Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Methods, Automated Gradient-Boosting Models Accurately Score Intraoral Plaque in Non-Standardized Images.

Background: Previous automated models inaccurately scored non-standardized plaque images. The objectives were to develop and test automated image selection and intraoral plaque-scoring (primary outcome measure in a prevention trial for preschoolers).

Methods: Evaluating 1650 plaque-disclosed primary teeth (teeth D, E, F, G) from 435 photographs from UCSF/UCLA clinical trials, data were cleaned, transformed, and modeled with statistical and machine learning (ML) algorithms; data visualizations utilized Jupyter Notebooks, Python, OpenCV, and Sci-kit Learn libraries, with Laplacian filter preprocessing.

Flavored Tobacco and Nicotine Use Among California Adolescents: Preferences by Use Experience and Survey Format Effects.

Purpose: This study assessed flavored tobacco use among adolescent e-cigarette, cigarette, cigar, hookah, and smokeless tobacco users; specific e-cigarette flavor preferences; risk profiles of youth that use various flavors; and the impact of survey question wording on prevalence.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from 4,956 California adolescent participants (aged 12-17 years) in the Teens, Nicotine, and Tobacco 2021-2022 online panel survey estimated the survey-weighted prevalence of flavored tobacco use. An embedded randomized experiment assessed survey wording effects (i.

Asian Americans' and Pacific Islanders' preferences in recruitment strategies and messaging for participation in the CARE registry: A discrete choice experiment.

Introduction: This discrete choice experiment (DCE) identified Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) adults' preferences for recruitment strategies/messaging to enroll in the Collaborative Approach for AAPI Research and Education (CARE) registry for dementia-related research.

Methods: DCE recruitment strategy/messaging options were developed in English, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. AAPI participants 50 years and older selected (1) who, (2) what, and (3) how they would prefer hearing about CARE.

Flavors increase adolescents' willingness to try nicotine and cannabis vape products.

Background: Certain product characteristics, such as flavor, may increase adolescents' willingness to try vaped nicotine and cannabis (marijuana) products.

Methods: A discrete choice experiment embedded within the 2021-2022 California Teens Nicotine and Tobacco Project Online Survey was administered to a non-probability sample of N = 2342 adolescents ages 12-17. Participants were sequentially presented four randomly-generated pairs of hypothetical vape products that varied in device type (disposable, refillable), content (nicotine, marijuana, "just vapor"), and flavor (seven options) and asked which of these (or neither) they would be more willing to try if a best friend offered.

Calibration and reliability testing of a novel asynchronous photographic plaque scoring system in young children.

Objectives: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index for Maxillary Incisors (OHI-MIS) is a novel plaque scoring system adapted for young children. This study describes calibration training and testing used to establish the inter- and intra-rater reliability for OHI-MIS measured from clinical photographs.

Methods: Two raters from the Coordinated Oral Health Promotion Chicago (CO-OP) and one from the Behavioral EConomics for Oral health iNnovation (BEECON) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) underwent calibration with gold standard raters, followed by annual re-calibration.

COVID-19 Impact on Community-Based Participatory Randomized Controlled Trials-Lessons From the Oral Health Disparities in Children Consortium.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on nearly every sector of science and industry worldwide, including a significant disruption to clinical trials and dentistry. From the beginning of the pandemic, dental care was considered high risk for viral transmission due to frequent aerosol-generating procedures. This resulted in special challenges for dental providers, oral health care workers, patients, and oral health researchers.

Coronavirus Disease Update on Epidemiology, Virology, and Prevention.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as the first coronavirus-initiated pandemic. COVID-19's fast-paced global spread with a broad range of clinical manifestations compelled health regulatory organizations, public health professionals, and researchers to update their information about the disease and provide individual- and community-based guidelines, solutions, and regulations to break the disease cycle, mitigate person-to-person transmission, and reduce cross-contamination in healthcare settings. In this review, the authors provide known facts and updated information about SARS-CoV-2 virology and its new variants, transmission routes, reported clinical symptoms, epidemiology, and infection control and prevention guidelines with a focus on a hierarchy of controls in dental settings.

Functional adaptation of interradicular alveolar bone to reduced chewing loads on dentoalveolar joints in rats.

Objectives: The effects of reduced chewing loads on load bearing integrity of interradicular bone (IB) within dentoalveolar joints (DAJ) in rats were investigated.

Methods: Four-week-old Sprague Dawley rats (N = 60) were divided into two groups; rats were either fed normal food, which is hard-pellet food (HF) (N = 30), or soft-powdered chow (SF) (N = 30). Biomechanical testing of intact DAJs and mapping of the resulting mechanical strains within IBs from 8- through 24-week-old rats fed HF or SF were performed.

Ectopic biomineralization in kidney stone formers compared to non-stone formers.

Background: Kidney stone formers (SFs) are at increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, and atherosclerosis of the carotid and coronary arteries. These cardiovascular and urologic pathologies can result from ectopic biomineral deposition. The objectives of this study are: (I) to evaluate risk factors for ectopic biomineralization, and (II) to characterize the overall burden of ectopic minerals in known SFs compared to non-stone formers (NSFs) matched for these risk factors.

Family monetary incentives as a value-based care model for oral hygiene: rationale and design of the BEhavioral EConomics for Oral health iNnovation (BEECON) trial.

Background: Effective prevention-focused, value-based strategies are needed to improve oral health. Despite evidence that monetary incentives can motivate healthy behavior, well-powered studies have yet to examine incentives for improving children's oral hygiene.

Aim: Describe the rationale and design of the BEhavioral EConomics for Oral health iNnovation (BEECON) trial, which tests lottery-based monetary incentives as a consumer-oriented, value-based care model for improving children's oral hygiene.