Matheus Lotto

• DDS, MSc
• University of São Paulo

This study analyzed dental caries-related Facebook posts in Brazilian Portuguese to identify misinformation and predict user interaction factors. A sample of 500 posts (between August 2016 and August 2021), was obtained by CrowdTangle. Two independent and calibrated investigators (intraclass correlation coefficient varying from 0.80 to 0.98) charac...

Objective This study aimed to identify predictive factors for engagement with dental caries-related posts on Instagram. Methods Using CrowdTangle, 10,000 English-language posts were retrieved based on total interactions. From these, 2063 posts were evaluated using predetermined inclusion criteria, and a final sample of 500 posts was selected. Two...

Objectives: This study characterized toothache-related Portuguese Facebook posts, identifying factors driving misinformation production and user engagement. Methods: Investigators qualitatively analyzed 500 posts published between August 2018 and August 2022, screening on language and theme. Posts were selected using CrowdTangle and assessed for mo...

To qualitatively analyse English-language Facebook comments pertaining to amber necklaces, aiming to explore user experiences, perceptions, and beliefs. A sample of 1000 comments, totalling 2309 sentences, was collected via CrowdTangle. Sociodemographic details and the time elapsed since comment were also recorded. Using QDAMiner software, a single...

In the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), ethical considerations of digitally-led public health surveillance are crucial. However, their application becomes complicated due to an implicit dichotomy of ethical and legal factors. Decision-makers often omit ethical considerations, citing legal ones to justify how public health surveillance is approa...

To determine the interests of Google users from different countries about pacifier-related information over time, through a quantitative and qualitative analysis. This infodemiology longitudinal retrospective ecological study investigated pacifier-related computational metadata from 22 countries using Google Trends platform. Initially, Relative Sea...

This scoping review elucidated the characteristics of polarized scientific digital messages credited by researchers for studying the impact of content on people's perceptions. Inclusion criteria encompassed discourse and content analysis studies examining the syntactic and lexical features of polarized messages in online science communication, as w...

In the era of ultra-connectivity, the proliferation of speculative notions driven by personal emotions eclipses the credibility of scientific evidence. This trend has led to an alarming surge in information pollution, particularly by the pervasive influence of social media platforms. Consequently, this overflow of falsehoods poses a significant thr...

The consumption and sharing of information on social media contribute to the circulation of false health content. In this sense, popular belief-driven posts recommending the use of amber necklaces to prevent symptoms of teething can be easily found on social media, even when they offer health risks for children. Accordingly, this study aimed to cha...

Aim: This study aimed to assess the engagement of Instagram users with Brazilian Portuguese posts related to amber necklaces for teething symptoms relief, identifying predictive factors that can increase users' engagement with information and misinformation. Methods: This digital study analysed Brazilian Portuguese amber necklace-related posts o...

Objective: This infodemiology study aimed to analyze characteristics of English-language Instagram posts on ‘Biological Dentistry’. Materials and Methods: Using CrowdTangle, we analyzed 500 ‘Biological Dentistry’ posts published on Instagram from May 2017 to May 2022. Two researchers assessed each post for facticity, motivation, author’s profile, s...

Objective: Social media is a platform for sharing views on aspects of life, including oral health. This study aimed to characterize Facebook posts related to toothache information. Methods: Two independent investigators retrieved 500 English-language posts with the highest level of interaction using CrowdTangleTM and analyzed their facticity, mo...

This study aimed to determine the health interests of Google users regarding information disorders. Using Google Trends, relative search volumes (RSVs) that disclosed topics such as 'disinformation,' 'fake news,' 'misinformation,' and 'conspiracy theory' were collected in all and health categories, from January 2004 to March 2023. The data were ana...

Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have the potential to revolutionize online health information-seeking behavior by delivering up-to-date information on a wide range of health topics. They generate personalized responses to user queries through their ability to process extensive amounts of text, analyze trends, and generate natural language res...

Internet amplio la posibilidad de las personas para que administren su propia salud en un contexto de autogestión y facilidad de acceso. La observación del comportamiento de las búsquedas relacionadas a salud puede reflejar las necesidades de la población acerca de la salud bucal. Este estudio retrospectivo longitudinal ecológico está dirigido a pr...

The Internet is a growing source of knowledge and can provide information about oral health. This ecological study aimed to characterize the interests in toothpaste among Google users from different countries. Our hypothesis was that there would be an increase in Google users' interest in information about toothpaste. This retrospective longitudina...

Social media discussions about the hypothetical side effects of fluoride-containing products have contributed to forming and strengthening health beliefs underpinning the anti-fluoridation movement. Given the importance of content analysis in mitigating online misinformation, this study aimed to investigate fluoride-free content on Twitter. Firstly...

Background Health misinformation disseminated on social media detrimentally affects the public's reactions toward public health measures. This has led to costly and harmful public health crises. Due to a lack of a comprehensive expert system that collects and analyzes large volumes of social media data, public health officials are incapable of miti...

Background The comprehension of the interests of Internet users regarding their health‐related searches may reveal the community's demands about oral health. The study aimed to characterize the interests of Google users related to mouthwash in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Saudi Arabia and S...

Background: Messages promoting the benefits of amber necklaces for children are common on social media, despite their health risks. Aim: This study characterized Facebook posts with false content about the efficacy of amber necklaces in teething. Design: A sample of 500 English-language Facebook posts was analyzed by two investigators to deter...

Purpose: To assess the coverage of information about early childhood caries (ECC) available on YouTube videos in three different languages, regarding technical characteristics of videos and interaction metrics. Methods: Search strategies were developed in English, Spanish, and Portuguese to make a comprehensive collection of videos from YouTube,...

Chronic stress has become an epidemic with negative health risks including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes. Traditional methods of stress measurement and monitoring typically relies on self-reporting. However, wearable smart technologies offer a novel strategy to continuously and non-invasively collect objective health data in th...

Recent studies have been concerned about the vast amount of misinformation detected on social media that directly hampers the prevention and control of chronic diseases. Based on these facts, the aim of this study was to identify and characterize misinformation about dental caries-related content found on Facebook, regarding the predictive factors...

Abstract Considering the unfavorable implications of health falsehoods and the lack of dental research into information disorder, this study aimed to identify and characterize online oral health misinformation. A total of 410 websites published in English were retrieved using Google Advanced Search and screened by two independent investigators to c...

Big data originating from user interactions on social media play an essential role in infodemiology and infoveillance outcomes, supporting the planning and implementation of public health actions. Notably, the extrapolation of these data requires an awareness of different ethical elements. Previous studies have investigated and discussed the adopti...

BACKGROUND Online misinformation concerning the side effects of fluoridated oral care products and tap water contributes to the onset and propagation of untrue beliefs that culminate in anti-fluoridation movements. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to analyze the fluoride-related misinformation on Twitter automatically. METHODS 21,169 tweets published i...

Background: Although social media has the potential to spread misinformation, it can also be a valuable tool for elucidating the social factors that contribute to the onset of negative beliefs. As a result, data mining has become a widely used technique in infodemiology and infoveillance research to combat misinformation effects. On the other hand...

BACKGROUND Digital misinformation, primarily on social media, has led to harmful and costly beliefs in the general population. Notably, these beliefs have resulted in public health crises to the detriment of governments around the world and their citizens. However, public health officials currently lack access to a comprehensive system capable of m...

Background: Digital misinformation, primarily on social media, has led to harmful and costly beliefs in the general population. Notably, these beliefs have resulted in public health crises to the detriment of governments worldwide and their citizens. However, public health officials need access to a comprehensive system capable of mining and analy...

Background The Internet is a growing source of knowledge and can provide information about oral health. This ecological study aimed to characterize the interests of Google users on toothpaste in different countries. Methods This longitudinal retrospective study analyzed the toothpaste-related interest of Google users from ten distinct countries be...

BACKGROUND Misleading online content continually propagates possible adverse effects of fluoridated oral care products and water, although their essential role in preventing and controlling dental caries. OBJECTIVE This study aims to evaluate the patterns of psychophysiological reactions of adults after the consumption of online fluoride-related i...

Background False messages on the internet continually propagate possible adverse effects of fluoridated oral care products and water, despite their essential role in preventing and controlling dental caries. Objective This study aims to evaluate the patterns of psychophysiological reactions of adults after the consumption of internet-based fluoride...

Objective: This study aimed to identify and characterize misleading online oral health information. Materials and Methods: 410 websites published in English were retrieved by Google Advanced Search and screened by 2 independent investigators, who compiled false messages through content analysis. Afterward, 318 content items were divided in consensu...

Aim: To assess the quality and readability of ECC-related Web information available in English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese language. Methods: This study assessed the quality and readability of information related to ECC in three different languages found on the most popular Internet search engines worldwide. Websites were retrieved from d...

This study evaluated the behavior of Internet users from seven countries through the analysis of the monthly variation of the Relative Search Volume (RSV) for queries related to early childhood caries (ECC), retrieved by Google Trends application programming interface between January 2004 to December 2020. The association of RSV with years lived wi...

BACKGROUND Digital oral health misleading information has been propagated on social media to deceive people about fluoride's economic and health benefits to prevent dental caries. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to characterize the misleading fluoride-related information on Instagram. METHODS 3,863 posts ranked by users' total interaction and publishe...

Background Online false or misleading oral health–related content has been propagated on social media to deceive people against fluoride’s economic and health benefits to prevent dental caries. Objective The aim of this study was to characterize the false or misleading fluoride-related content on Instagram. MethodsA total of 3863 posts ranked by us...

This study aimed to perform the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) for Brazilian Portuguese. The cross-cultural adaptation was conducted through conceptual equivalence, verbatim translation, semantic, item and operational equivalence, and back-translation. Subsequently, 521 undergraduate students answere...

Objectives The aim of this ecological study was to analyze the relationship of social restriction measures and people's interest in searching toothache-related information on the Internet. Materials and Methods The following indicators Stringency Index (SI), Years Lived with Disability (YLDs) for untreated caries in permanent teeth, Google market...

Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of educational messages as an aid in the control of early childhood caries (ECC) in low socioeconomic children. Methods A single-blinded, randomized, and parallel-group study was conducted with 104 dyads of parents and children aged between 36-60 months, recruited in preschools from (blinded). The participa...

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the readability and the quality of toothache-related information found in Brazilian websites. Materials and methods: Fifty-five websites retrieved from Google Search, Baidu, Yahoo! and Bing were evaluated by two independent examiners using the DISCERN questionnaire, the Journal of American Medical A...

Background: Early childhood caries (ECC) affects about 621 million children worldwide, causing chronic pain, infections, sleeping disorders, and tooth extraction. Aim: To determine perspectives of parents and caregivers of preschoolers regarding ECC. Design: Three focus groups were conducted with attendees of the Clinics of Pediatric Dentistry...

Background The preferences of Web users can be influenced by distinct factors of populations. Hence, hypothetically, source-based patterns of health-related Web searches might differ between individuals from developed and developing countries, due to their distinct educational, social, economic, political, cultural, and psychosocial backgrounds. In...

Background: Molar incisor hypomineralization (MIH) is a developmental enamel defect characterized by well-demarcated discolorations frequently detected in molars, causing pain and esthetic alterations. Aim: To assess the interests of Google users on MIH-related information. Design: Digital data were collected in Google Trends through two searc...

Background: The preferences of Web users can be influenced by distinct factors of populations, such as the ability of obtaining, processing, and understanding health information adequately. In this sense, hypothetically, source-based patterns of health-related Web searches might differ between individuals from developed and developing countries, du...

Background: The preferences of Web users can be influenced by distinct factors of populations, such as the ability of obtaining, processing, and understanding health information adequately. In this sense, hypothetically, source-based patterns of health-related Web searches might differ between individuals from developed and developing countries, du...

Aim To determine the interests of Google users in information about amber necklace in distinct countries over time. Design This longitudinal retrospective study analyzed the amber necklace‐related computational data generated from the activity of Google users of 17 countries, by the application of Google Trends. Four search strategies were defined...

BACKGROUND In 2017, approximately 3.7 billion downloads of health apps were made on mobile phones and tablets. In this sense, a massive number of people could benefit by electronic mobile–based health interventions, making information available even with the lack of material and human resources. Hence, the use of electronic apps for dental educatio...

Background: In 2017, approximately 3.7 billion downloads of health apps were made on mobile phones and tablets. In this sense, a massive number of people could benefit by electronic mobile-based health interventions, making information available even with the lack of material and human resources. Hence, the use of electronic apps for dental educat...

Objective To determine the differences between the levels of interest of South American Google users on information related to dental caries and toothache over time. Materials and Methods The monthly variation of Relative Search Volume (RSV) for both queries was obtained in Google Trends between 2004 and 2017. The association between RSVs, Interne...

Objective: This study aimed to perform the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the NVS for Brazilian Portuguese. Material and Methods: Two hundred and fifty adults responded to the adapted version of the NVS, the Brazilian version of the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry (BREALD-30), ten questions of the National Functional Lite...

Background The knowledge on health interests of a given population of Internet users might contribute to the increase of evidence on community’s dental needs, and consequently, to the improvement of public health planning. The frequency of searches for specific issues on Google can be analyzed by the application of Google Trends. Aim In this study...

Background The misunderstanding of specific vocabulary may hamper the patient-health provider communication. The 20-item Rapid Estimate Adult Literacy in Medicine and Dentistry (REALMD-20) was constructed to screen patients by their ability in reading medical/dental terminologies in a simple and rapid way. This study aimed to perform the cross-cult...

The raw data of the validation of the Brazilian version of the REALMD-20