PARTITIONING AROUND MEDOIDS CLUSTERING AND RANDOM FOREST CLASSIFICATION FOR GIS-INFORMED IMPUTATION OF FLUORIDE CONCENTRATION DATA.

ABSTRACT: Community water fluoridation is an important component of oral health promotion, as fluoride exposure is a well-documented dental caries-preventive agent. Direct measurements of domestic water fluoride content provide valuable information regarding individuals' fluoride exposure and thus caries risk; however, they are logistically challenging to carry out at a large scale in oral health research. This article describes the development and evaluation of a novel method for the imputation of missing domestic water fluoride concentration data informed by spatial autocorrelation. The context is a state-wide epidemiologic study of pediatric oral health in North Carolina, where domestic water fluoride concentration information was missing for approximately 75% of study participants with clinical

SUBMITTER: Gu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8963777 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature