Challenges in dental statistics: data and modelling

The aim of this work is to present the reflections and proposals derived from the first Workshop of the SISMEC STATDENT working group on statistical methods and applications in dentistry, held in Ancona (Italy) on 28th September 2011. STATDENT began as a forum of comparison and discussion for statisticians working in the field of dental research in order to suggest new and improve existing biostatistical and clinical epidemiological methods. During the meeting, we dealt with very important topics of statistical methodology for the analysis of dental data, covering the analysis of hierarchically structured and over-dispersed data, the issue of calibration and reproducibility, as well as some problems related to survey methodology, such as the design and construction of unbiased statistical indicators and of well conducted clinical trials. This paper gathers some of the methodological topics discussed during the meeting, concerning multilevel and zero-inflated models for the analysis of caries data and methods for the training and calibration of raters in dental epidemiology.