ADA News and JADA are dentistry’s best-read publications for the year 2000, with barely a hairbreadth between them, according to an independent survey released in May.
The ADA News, published 22 times a year, was the best-read of all dental publications, recording an average per-issue readership score of 75 percent in the yearly FOCUS study conducted by the PERQ/HCI Corp., an independent research firm based in Princeton, N.J.
Running a close second to the ADA News in this year’s survey was The Journal of the American Dental Association, a monthly boasting a 74 percent average per-issue readership score, just one percentage point behind the News.
JADA, in fact, was the big story out of the FOCUS study for 2000. Last year, the study showed The Journal tied for second place with a well-known dental magazine, both publications recording 70 percent average readership scores.
This year, JADA eclipsed its nearest competitor by 10 percentage points—and even edged the ADA News as the preferred periodical among the newest dentists, those in practice for 15 years or less.
Among these newer dentists, The Journal recorded a 72 percent per-issue readership score, with the ADA News just off the pace at 71 percent. The third-place entry was eight percentage points behind JADA in the 15-years-or-less category.
The PERQ/HCI FOCUS study measures readership and advertising exposure for 13 dental publications, listing "State Journal" as a single entity.
Questionnaires were sent to 1,000 dentists randomly selected from the ADA’s list of member and nonmember dentists in active private practice, including general dentists and specialists.
The FOCUS study measures not only what dentists read, but how they read (cover to cover? read some articles, look through others? skim? check out the table of contents, then flip to articles of interest?).
Respondents are asked about their reading habits in relation to four issues of each publication. Their answers are weighted according to a FOCUS study formula to produce an average issue readership percentage.
