June 21, 2007

What are the Top Dental Journals?

According to the 2006 Journal Citation Reports, here are the top ranked journals in dentistry, oral surgery & oral medicine.

BY IMPACT FACTOR:
#1: Critical Reviews in Oral Biology & Medicine
#2: Journal of Dental Research
#3: Journal of Endodontics

BY TOTAL CITES:
#1: Journal of Dental Research
#2: Journal of Periodontology
#3: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology & Endodontics

BY IMMEDIACY:
#1: Periodontology 2000
#2: British Dental Journal
#3: Journal of Clinical Periodontology

BY CITED HALF LIFE:
#1: Acta Odontologica Scandinavica
#2: American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics
#3: Angle Orthodontics

BY CURRENT ARTICLES:
#1: Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
#2: Journal of Periodontology
#3: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology & Endodontics

Want to find out about the rest? Here's how to check yourself.

1. Dentistry Library homepage, top section
2. Click on WebOfKnowledge
3. Click on Journal Citation Reports
4. In left column: Select JCR Science Edition + choose year
NOTE: I don't see 2007 available yet
5. In right column: View by Subject Category
6. SUBMIT
7. Scroll down the category list to Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine
8. Choose sort by Impact Factor.
9. SUBMIT

Posted by pfa at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2007

FAQ: Why Aren't My Articles Listed?

Q:

I just browsed the mblog entry for the dental faculty publication list, but my recent publications are not listed. One is not even on the PubMed yet! What should I do?

A:

First off, let me describe how these lists are generated.

The Library has automatic searches that run everytime the OVID Medline database is updated. We have two searches, because we found that there was no methodology for one search that was truly inclusive of all our faculty. Both search strategies retrieve very different lists of articles.

The first search looks through all the dental literature published, and limits it to that with primary author addresses in Ann Arbor Michigan. Those are skimmed by the librarian to ensure that the address or names are for people in the School of Dentistry. Since many of our faculty have joint appointments with other schools on campus, we did not want to limit to just publications listed the School of Dentistry for their address. The flaw of this search is that it may include articles by people no longer at the School, but who listed this address before they left, and it will not include articles by faculty who are not listed as first authors.

The second search is a list of faculty names limited to addresses in Michigan. The School of Dentistry provided the Dentistry Library with a list of faculty associated with the School. This was a large search, and obviously can become dated as soon as people leave the school or new people arrive. If you are a new faculty member, please introduce yourself and we will try to add you to this search. The flaw of this search strategy, aside from datedness, is that many faculty names are similar or identical to names of other authors from other institutions. Because of authoring partnerships that cross institutional boundaries is not always possible to verify that two authors with the same last name and initials are or are not different people. Thus some articles might be listed that are by authors not from the School of Dentistry, or articles may not be listed that are from the School of Dentistry.

If you skim the dates of the articles that are listed, you may notice that many of them are a bit older than you might expect. This is because I wait to post them until they appear on Medline.

OVID Medline is often a month behind PubMed, and articles will appear on PubMed first. For dental articles, PubMed can range from immediate listing to up to 18 months post-publication. This depends in part on how busy things are at NLM, and in another part on the prestige and publication practices of the journal.

Basically, some journals provide pre-publication data to PubMed. Those articles will be listed in PubMed almost immediately, and will reach OVID Medline when they are fully cataloged. I don't know for certain, but I suspect that the catalogers might do these sooner since they have partial data and might be faster to complete. For those dental journals that do not provide pre-publication data to NLM, they will not appear in PubMed until after they have been fully cataloged. This can take several months. Some years ago, information available suggested you might wait 18 months before really worrying, but this may have changed since then. In any case, this delay is an excellent justification for hand searching when doing a systematic review.

What can you do about it? At the level of the individual article, you can't do much at all. While PubMed does have a way to contact them, this is useful primarily for reporting errors of the database content -- when there is a typo that is different than what was actually published in the journal, or when the cataloging doesn't match that for other similar articles. More information on how to contact NLM about PubMed is here.

PubMed: Contact the Help Desk: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/contacts/contact_pubmed.html

The most useful action you can take is to encourage the journals in which you publish and the professional associations of which you are a member to provide their pre-publication data to NLM for PubMed.

Posted by pfa at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2006

US Water Fluoridation Maps Available

New from the CDC, an interactive map of the United States that allows you to check local water fluoridation levels.

"My Water’s Fluoride allows consumers in currently participating states to learn the fluoridation status of their water system."

To use this map, click first on the state, then on the county, and lastly on the city. Many city entries will also include the option to view the operational reports for that jurisdiction.

CDC: My Water's Fluoride: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/Index.asp

Posted by pfa at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2006

More Dental Statistics from the CDC

Our previous entry on statistics focused primarily on international resources. What if you want to know the percentage of edentulous persons in Utah? The US data is available in various forms from the CDC. Here are some examples of information available.

CDC: National Oral Health Surveillance System: http://www.cdc.gov/nohss/

Beltran-Aguilar ED, Barker LK, Canto MT, Dye BA, Gooch BF, Griffin SO, Hyman J, Jaramillo F, Kingman A, Nowjack-Raymer R, Selwitz RH, Wu T. Surveillance for Dental Caries, Dental Sealants, Tooth Retention, Edentulism, and Enamel Fluorosis. MMWR Surveillance Summaries 2005;54(03);1–44. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm

Eke, PI, Thornton-Evans GO, DDS, Beckles GL. Dental Visits Among Dentate Adults with Diabetes—United States, 1999 and 2004. MMWR, November 25, 2005;54(46):1181–1183. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5446a3.htm

Gooch BF, Eke PI, Malvitz DM. Public Health and Aging: Retention of Natural Teeth Among Older Adults -- United States, 2002. MMWR;52(50):1226–29. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5250a3.htm

Macek M, Matte T, Sinks T, Malvitz D. Blood Lead Concentrations in Children and Method of Water Fluoridation, United States, 1988–1994. Environmental Health Perspectives 2005. Available from http://dx.doi.org/* using code: 10.1289/ehp.8319.

Surveillance for Use of Preventive Health-Care Services by Older Adults, 1995-1997. MMWR, December 17, 1999;48(SS08):51–88. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss4808a4.htm

Total Tooth Loss Among Persons Aged Greater Than or Equal to 65 Years — Selected States, 1995-1997. MMWR, March 19, 1999;48(10):206–210. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056723.htm

For more, check the CDC's Oral Health page [http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/index.htm] and their collection of Data Systems [http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/data_systems/index.htm]. The latter includes Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Data Resource Center (DRC), My Water's Fluoride, Oral Health Maps, and Synopses.

Posted by pfa at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2006

Most Requested Dental Statistics

There are two particular statistics I am asked for on a fairly frequent basis -- 1) caries prevalence in various countries; and 2) distribution of dentists comparied to population for various countries. I thought perhaps it would help folks find them more easily if I post them here.

Global Statistics about Caries

WHO Oral Health Country/Area Profile Programme: http://www.whocollab.od.mah.se/index.html

International Statistics about the Dental Workforce

Global Atlas of the Health Workforce: http://www.who.int/globalatlas/DataQuery/default.asp

More International Health Statistics

FYI, WHOSIS, the statistical system from the World Health Organization, is in the process of a substantial change. For a brief time, you can still access both systems.

WHOSIS (WHO Statistical Information System): World Health Statistics 2006: http://www.who.int/whosis/en/

Posted by pfa at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2006

Financial (and Related) Resources for Patients

General Information about Financial Resources for Health Treatment and Care

General Information about Financial Resources for Michigan Residents

See also our Guide to Online Drug Information Resources, which includes a section on Patient Assistance Programs and Compassionate Use.

Posted by pfa at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2006

For Alumni and other Dental Professionals: Getting Journal Articles

The phone rings. "Hello? May I speak to the librarian? I'm trying to find out how to get a copy of an article that is in your library. I'm sorry to impose, but can you fax me a copy?"

This is a common scenario at the Dentistry Library Circulation Desk. Luckily for all of us, there are good solutions in place for meeting this need.

Solution #1:

The first thing you might want to try would be to go to the Taubman Library's collection of UM or free resources available to alumni and the general public.

Taubman Medical Library: Resources for Alums and Non - UM Health Care Professionals: http://www.lib.umich.edu/taubman/visitor.html

This list includes information about what journals are available free and how to find them, as well as much much more.

Solution #2:

University of Michigan: Michigan Information Transfer Source (MITS): http://www.lib.umich.edu/mits/

MITS can make copies of articles and deliver them in paper or online from any of the University of Michigan Libraries. This service does cost money, and the price goes up if you need it rapidly.

Solution #3:

For healthcare providers, you may also want to consider using the Loansome Doc service from the National Library of Medicine. They have a very helpful guide about how to use the various Interlibrary Loan options that NLM has available.

NLM: Fact Sheet: Interlibrary Loan: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/ill.html

NLM: Fact Sheet: Loansome Doc: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/loansome_doc.html

You can also go to Loansome Doc directly:

Loansome Doc: https://docline.gov/loansome/login.cfm

... or from Pubmed. In Pubmed, go to the blue navigation bar on the left side of the screen, scroll towards the bottom to "Related Resources", and then click on "Order Documents."

Loansome Doc Ordering System: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/loansomedoc/loansome_home.html

Have fun!

Posted by pfa at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)