Challenges in dental statistics: data and modelling
The aim of this work is to present the reflections and proposals derived from the first Workshop of the SISMEC STATDENT working group on statistical methods and applications in dentistry, held in Ancona (Italy) on 28th September 2011. STATDENT began as a forum of comparison and discussion for statisticians working in the field of dental research in order to suggest new and improve existing biostatistical and clinical epidemiological methods. During the meeting, we dealt with very important topics of statistical methodology for the analysis of dental data, covering the analysis of hierarchically structured and over-dispersed data, the issue of calibration and reproducibility, as well as some…
Italian Deprivation Index and Dental Caries in 12-Year-Old Children: A Multilevel Bayesian Analysis
Evidence from the literature has shown that people with a lower socioeconomic status enjoy less good health than people with a higher socioeconomic status. The Italian deprivation index (DI) was used with the aim to evaluate the association between the DMFT index and risk factors for dental caries, including city population and DI. The study included 4,305 12-year-old children living in 38 cities classified by demographic size as small, midsize and large. Zero-inflated negative binomial multilevel regression models were used to assess risk factors for DMFT and to address excess of zero DMFT and overdispersion through a Bayesian approach. The difference in the average level of DMFT among chi…