IADR/AADR abstracts of research projects to be presented at the Annual Meeting are published each year in the Journal of Dental Research. An assumption often made is that the material in these abstracts is subsequently published as journal articles. The validity of this assumption was assessed in this study. Following a review of the literature to establish study criteria, the specific objectives of this study were to determine: (1) the percentage of IADR/AADR abstracts subsequently published as articles, (2) the length of time from abstract to publication, and (3) the amount of discrepancy between abstract and article. Ten percent of the IADR/AADR abstracts from the years 1983 (n = 125) and 1984 (n = 150) were randomly selected and surveyed for their publication history. Major reference sources were checked for determination of whether articles had resulted from the abstracts. Of the 1983-1984 abstracts surveyed, the results indicated that more abstracts were not published (78.5% in 1983/76.0% in 1984) than were published (21.6% in 1983/24.0% in 1984). Of those articles previously published as abstracts, the greatest number (44.4% in 1983 47.2% in 1984) were published within ten to 21 months following presentation. The greatest amount of discrepancy between the abstract and the article involved names and numbers of authors, titles, purpose statements, and results/conclusions. In other health disciplines, the percentage of abstracts subsequently published as articles ranged from 31.1% to 53.9%. Since a smaller percentage of the IADR/AADR abstracts surveyed in this study were ultimately published (21.6% to 24%). IADR/AADR should consider various strategies to improve the quality of abstracts and their accessibility.

The purpose of this study was to analyze data collected by the American Dental Association and the American Dental Education Association over the past two decades relating to changes in the number of women active in dental education and dental practice. The concept of a pipeline of women in dentistry was explored by analyzing predoctoral, postdoctoral, dental practice, and dental education domains for the inclusion of women. Statistical analyses show that there has been a consistent and progressive increase in the number of women in all stages of the pipeline. Over the past two decades, the number of female students attending and graduating from dental school has steadily increased. In 1984-85, 23.7 percent of all predoctoral students were women; in 2009-10, 45.1 percent were women. Similarly, in 1999, the graduating class was 35.3 percent women; in 2009, it was 46.1 percent women. In the postdoctoral domain, in 1996, 29.9 percent of all residents were women; in 2010, this had increased to 39.0 percent. In dental practice, the number of actively licensed women dentists in 1999 was 15.3 percent of the workforce; in 2010, this percentage had grown to 24.0 percent. In dental education, the number of women clinical faculty members has gradually increased from 669 in 1997-98 to 902 in 2007-08. Until 2000, there had been only two women deans and very few associate/assistant deans, with only sixteen in 1990. In 2000, major changes began with three women deans and seventy-two women associate/assistant deans. In 2009-10, there were 111 associate/assistant women deans and twelve women deans. These data show a progressive increase in the presence of women in all domains of dentistry, especially in leadership positions in dental education.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract