ArticleBritish dental journal2016
Critique of the review of 'Water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries' published by the Cochrane Collaboration in 2015.
Article in British dental journal, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Water fluoridation today: - benefits and challenges.Frontiers in oral health · 2026Review
- An International Research Agenda for Oral Health Birth Cohort Studies.Journal of dental research · 2025Article
- Remineralization Effect of Zamzam Water on Initial Artificial Carious Lesion of Permanent Teeth.Cureus · 2022Article
- Fluoridation cessation and children's dental caries: A 7-year follow-up evaluation of Grade 2 schoolchildren in Calgary and Edmonton, Canada.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2022Article
- Fluoride in the drinking water and dental caries experience by tooth surface susceptibility among adults.BMC oral health · 2021Article
- How effective and cost-effective is water fluoridation for adults? Protocol for a 10-year retrospective cohort study.BDJ open · 2021Article
- Dental caries experience in children of a remote Australian Indigenous community following passive and active preventive interventions.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2019Article
- Higher antibiotic prescribing propensity of dentists in deprived areas and those with greater access to care in the North East and Cumbria, UK.British dental journal · 2018Article
- Water Fluoridation and Dental Caries in U.S. Children and Adolescents.Journal of dental research · 2018Article
- Prevalence, severity, and request for treatment of dental fluorosis among adults in an endemic region of Northern Nigeria.European journal of dentistryArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Cochrane Review on water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries was published in 2015 and attracted considerable interest and comment, especially in countries with extensive water fluoridation programmes. The Review had two objectives: (i) to evaluate the effects of water fluoridation (artificial or natural) on the prevention of dental caries, and (ii) to evaluate the effects of water fluoridation (artificial or natural) on dental fluorosis. The authors concluded, inter alia, that there was very little contemporary evidence, meeting the Review's inclusion criteria, that evaluated the effectiveness of water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries. The purpose of this critique is to examine the conduct of the above Review, and to put it into context in the wider body of evidence regarding the effectiveness of water fluoridation. While the overall conclusion that water fluoridation is effective in caries prevention agrees with previous reviews, many important public health questions could not be answered by the Review because of the restrictive criteria used to judge adequacy of study design and risk of bias. The potential benefits of using wider criteria in order to achieve a fuller understanding of the effectiveness of water fluoridation are discussed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
27056513What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.