Flavored Tobacco Product Use Among California Adolescents Before and Immediately After a Statewide Flavor Ban.

Introduction: In December 2022, a California law banned the retail sale of most flavored tobacco products (including e-cigarettes). This investigation evaluates adolescents' use of flavored tobacco before and after enactment.

Methods: The Teens Nicotine and Tobacco Project included online surveys of California adolescents (age 12-17) in 2022 (N=5127) and 2023 (N=5015) that assessed past 30-day use of various tobacco products, flavored product use, and perceived access to flavored e-cigarettes.

Patterns in Tobacco, E-Cigarette, and Cannabis Advertising Exposure Among California Adolescents and Associations With Future Use Expectations.

Background: Exposure to tobacco, e-cigarette, or cannabis marketing is associated with adolescent use. Few studies have examined advertising exposure prevalence and patterns across these products concurrently.

Methods: This study assessed past 30-day recalled exposure to promotional messages about tobacco, e-cigarettes ("vapes" on the survey), and cannabis ("marijuana") from various sources among California adolescents (ages 12-17) in the 2022 Teens, Nicotine, and Tobacco Online Survey ( = 2530).

"I think we can do without [tobacco]": support for policies to end the tobacco epidemic among California adolescents.

Introduction: The tobacco endgame, policies aiming to end the commercial tobacco epidemic, requires sustained public support, including among youth. We assessed endgame support among California (USA) adolescents, including their reasons and associated participant and policy-specific factors.

Methods: Teens, Nicotine and Tobacco Project online surveys (n=4827) and focus groups were conducted in 2021 and 2022 among California residents aged 12-17 years.

Flavors increase adolescents' willingness to try nicotine and cannabis vape products.

Background: Certain product characteristics, such as flavor, may increase adolescents' willingness to try vaped nicotine and cannabis (marijuana) products.

Methods: A discrete choice experiment embedded within the 2021-2022 California Teens Nicotine and Tobacco Project Online Survey was administered to a non-probability sample of N = 2342 adolescents ages 12-17. Participants were sequentially presented four randomly-generated pairs of hypothetical vape products that varied in device type (disposable, refillable), content (nicotine, marijuana, "just vapor"), and flavor (seven options) and asked which of these (or neither) they would be more willing to try if a best friend offered.

Calibration and reliability testing of a novel asynchronous photographic plaque scoring system in young children.

Objectives: The Simplified Oral Hygiene Index for Maxillary Incisors (OHI-MIS) is a novel plaque scoring system adapted for young children. This study describes calibration training and testing used to establish the inter- and intra-rater reliability for OHI-MIS measured from clinical photographs.

Methods: Two raters from the Coordinated Oral Health Promotion Chicago (CO-OP) and one from the Behavioral EConomics for Oral health iNnovation (BEECON) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) underwent calibration with gold standard raters, followed by annual re-calibration.

Absence of Fluoride Varnish-Related Adverse Events in Caries Prevention Trials in Young Children, United States.

Introduction: Fluoride varnish is an effective prevention intervention for caries in young children. Its routine use in clinical care is supported by meta-analyses and recommended by clinical guidelines, including the US Preventive Services Task Force (B rating). This report is the first prospective systematic assessment of adverse events related to fluoride varnish treatment in young children.

Mediation analysis for count and zero-inflated count data.

Different conventional and causal approaches have been proposed for mediation analysis to better understand the mechanism of a treatment. Count and zero-inflated count data occur in biomedicine, economics, and social sciences. This paper considers mediation analysis for count and zero-inflated count data under the potential outcome framework with nonlinear models.

Functional remineralization of dentin lesions using polymer-induced liquid-precursor process.

It was hypothesized that applying the polymer-induced liquid-precursor (PILP) system to artificial lesions would result in time-dependent functional remineralization of carious dentin lesions that restores the mechanical properties of demineralized dentin matrix. 140 µm deep artificial caries lesions were remineralized via the PILP process for 7-28 days at 37°C to determine temporal remineralization characteristics. Poly-L-aspartic acid (27 KDa) was used as the polymeric process-directing agent and was added to the remineralization solution at a calcium-to-phosphate ratio of 2.

Caregiver acceptability and preferences for preventive dental treatments for young African-American children.

Unlabelled: Our prior research focused on parental treatment acceptability (TA) and treatment preferences (TPs) for preventive dental treatments for young Hispanic children. We adapted the interview for administration to parents of young African-American children.

Objective: In a sample of African-American parents, determine parental TA and TP for five dental treatments to prevent early childhood caries.

Dose-Weighted Adjusted Mantel-Haenszel Tests for Numeric Scaled Strata in a Randomized Trial.

A recent three-arm parallel groups randomized clinical prevention trial had a protocol deviation causing participants to have fewer active doses of an in-office treatment than planned. The original statistical analysis plan stipulated a minimal assumption randomization-based extended Mantel-Haenszel (EMH) trend test of the high frequency, low frequency, and zero frequency treatment groups and a binary outcome. Thus a dose-weighted adjusted EMH (DWAEMH) test was developed with an extra set of weights corresponding to the number of active doses actually available, in the spirit of a pattern mixture model.

Language and literacy relate to lack of children's dental sealant use.

Objectives: This study aimed to determine the percent of California's third grade public school children lacking sealants by child and family factors and to measure social disparities for lacking sealants.

Methods: The study analyzed data from the California Oral Health Needs Assessment (COHNA) 2004-2005, a complex stratified cluster sample of children (n = 10,450) from 182 randomly selected public elementary schools in California. The dependent variable was absence of sealants in first permanent molars.

Methods and software for estimating health disparities: the case of children's oral health.

The National Center for Health Statistics recently issued a monograph with 11 guidelines for reporting health disparities. However, guidelines on confidence intervals (CIs) cannot be readily implemented with the complex sample surveys often used for disease surveillance. In the United States, dental caries (decay) is the most common chronic childhood disease-5 times more common than asthma.

Developing an acceptability assessment of preventive dental treatments.

Objectives: Early childhood caries (ECC) is very prevalent among young Hispanic children. ECC is amenable to a variety of preventive procedures, yet many Hispanic families underutilize dental services. Acceptability research may assist in health care planning and resource allocation by identifying patient preferences among efficacious treatments with the goal of improving their utilization.