Assessing the Translation of Research and Innovation into Dental Practice

Dental innovations which will influence the oral health care of baby boomers

From the widespread use of smartphones and tablets to the multitude of applications available, older adults are showing an interest in utilizing technology to maintain their independence and to improve their quality of life. As technology continues to advance and be incorporated into many day-to-day activities, the baby boom generation will see these changes affecting the way they access and utilize dental services. Innovative toothbrushes and chemotherapeutics are continuing to be developed and utilized by many older adults. Within the dental office, older adults are seeing greater application of technology in every day dental procedures. These include the use of teledentistry, artificial intelligence (AI), innovative restorative materials, digitization of fixed and removable prosthodontics, cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans to guide dental implant placement and endodontic procedures. There is also new technology to aid in cancer detection and shielding during cancer treatment. Improved communication between the medical and dental fields has become increasingly necessary to facilitate effective patient care and a few innovative healthcare systems have begun to consolidate these services. Overall, the baby boom generation will continue to see dental innovations that will change the way they experience everyday life and dental services.

Bibliometrics Evaluation of Scientific Journals and Country Research Output of Dental Research in Latin America Using Scimago Journal and Country Rank

Innovations in dental sciences are potentially disruptive; however, the language barrier in the case of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) limits access to scientific studies. There is a necessity to measure the development of dental research across the LAC region, where economic power and postgraduate education access vary significantly. This article aims to analyze documents, citations, and journals and compare the SJR, H-Index, citation rates, and Co-occurrence Networks (Keywords) between dental journals published in LAC and the rest of the world, according to the report of Scimago Journal and Country Rank, between the years 1996 and 2020. Results show that Brazil leads dental research in the LAC, scoring the highest number of published documents, citations, and SJR metrics. The mean H-index and SJR of LAC dentistry journals are significantly lower than those of other regions (p < 0.03); however, there are no significant differences in the mean total citations in the last 3 years between LAC and other regions (p > 0.15). This suggests that the articles published in dentistry journals from LAC are being cited in similar proportions to the journals of other regions, but a large portion of these citations came from publications with low scientific impact.