Assessment of the Association between Socioeconomic Factors and Dental Health Disparities Over a Decade.

Background: Socioeconomic variables continue to play a major role in the global persistence of dental health inequities. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and dental health outcomes at a tertiary-care facility over a 10-year period.

Methods: Patient demographics, socioeconomic factors, and dental health outcomes were analyzed retrospectively from dental health records.

Detecting Social Contexts from Mobile Sensing Indicators in Virtual Interactions with Socially Anxious Individuals.

Mobile sensing is a ubiquitous and useful tool to make inferences about individuals' mental health based on physiology and behavior patterns. Along with sensing features directly associated with mental health, it can be valuable to detect different features of social contexts to learn about social interaction patterns over time and across different environments. This can provide insight into diverse communities' academic, work and social lives, and their social networks.

Preemptive Caudal Ropivacaine: An Effective Analgesic during Degenerative Lumbar Spine Surgery.

Study Design: This was a prospective, randomized, controlled trial comprising 60 patients undergoing lumbosacral spine (noninstrumentation/nonfusion) surgery.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of 0.2% ropivacaine (20 mL) administered alone as a single, preoperative, caudal epidural block injection versus that of intravenous analgesics in providing effective postoperative analgesia to patients undergoing lumbosacral spine surgery.