Food insecurity and dental caries prevalence in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta‐analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Food insecurity (FI) is associated with dietary practices, which can act as a risk factor for dental caries. Aim This study aimed to investigate the relationship between FI and dental caries prevalence in children and adolescents. Design MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE, SCOPUS, ISI web of knowledge, Cochrane, and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database (up to April 19, 2022) as well as reference lists were searched. Eligible studies compared dental caries prevalence in food‐secure and food‐insecure individuals younger than 19 years. Two independent reviewers performed study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment using a modified Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. Meta‐analysis was performed, and the pooled odds ratio (OR) was calculated at 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Results Among the 1350 retrieved records, 10 cross‐sectional reports were selected for systematic review. Six studies involving 8631 participants were included in the meta‐analysis. More than half of the reports were published within the period 2019–2021. All studies except one were judged as low risk of bias. Overall, the prevalence of dental caries was greater among the food‐insecure children and adolescents (OR: 2.01, 95% CI: 1.52–2.65, p < .001, I 2 : 73.5%). Similarly, all three categories of FI were significantly associated with caries experience (marginal FI: OR: 1.88, 95% CI: 1.56–2.27, p < .001, I 2 : 0.0%; low FI: OR: 2.42, 95% CI: 1.42–4.14, p = .001, I 2 : 74.4%; very low FI: OR: 2.37, 95% CI: 1.88–3.00, p < .001, I 2 : 0.0%). Conclusion The results showed a significant association between FI status and dental caries in both childhood and adolescence; however, there was a lack of longitudinal studies for a better understanding of this association. Health policies leading to reduction in FI may also aim to reduce dental caries.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.020 | 0.038 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".