Older Adults' Social Relationships and Dental Visits: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Weak social relationships are associated with high rates of tooth loss in older adults. To explore the mechanisms connecting social relationships and tooth loss, we systematically assessed the current evidence for the association between social relationships and dental care utilisation in this population. METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive literature search of five electronic databases for relevant studies published between 1966 and 2024. We included observational studies assessing the structural, functional and/or both combined components of social relationships as exposures and dental care utilisation as outcomes in adults aged 60+. The risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. To assess whether weak social relationships are associated with low dental care utilisation, an average odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval were generated using a meta-analysis. RESULTS: Eighteen studies were included in the review, and 12 (35,097 participants) in the meta-analysis. The average OR was 0.81 (0.69, 0.94), indicating a 19% lower probability of utilising dental care for those with weaker social relationships. CONCLUSION: This review suggests that weak social relationships are a significant factor associated with low dental care utilisation among older adults, highlighting a potential for public health interventions that address social isolation and loneliness. To guide future interventions, a better understanding of the specific components and time-dependency of this association is needed (PROSPERO [CRD42023417845]). PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023417845).
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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 | 0.014 | 0.036 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.017 | 0.026 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 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".