Clinical studies are an essential basis for medical progress and enable systematic knowledge to be gained that goes beyond the experience gained from treating individual patients. The choice of the right study design on the one hand and study-related case number planning on the other are of crucial importance. A particular challenge in studies in the field of dentistry is posed by multiple observations at patient level, be it through the collection of tooth-specific factors or treatments on more than one tooth per patient.

Clinical studies can draw on a broad, general range of methods. However, innovative approaches in dental research, such as the increased consideration of prognostic and predictive factors, the use of new target variables such as the microbiome, or the increased consideration of questions from the field of health care research, make it necessary to expand the spectrum that has been customary in dentistry to date.

The use of digital measurement and data collection methods is also leading to an increasing amount of data in dentistry research. This requires new ways of visualizing data and presenting results. Improving the Communications of study results - also through suitable illustration of theoretical-statistical measures - is therefore another focus.

Research in dentistry involves various fields from the natural sciences and psychology. As a statistician, I also see it as my job to act as an interdisciplinary link between the various fields.