About 35 percent of adult Americans didn't have a dental examination or cleaning in 2019, according to National Health Interview Survey results recently published by the CDC.
Researchers analyzed data from the 2019 NHIS, a nationally representative household survey.
Five key report findings:
1. In 2019, 65.5 percent of Americans ages 18-64 had visited the dentist in the past 12 months.
2. The percentage of adults who had a dental visit was higher in urban areas (66.7 percent) than in rural areas (57.6 percent).
3. Women were more likely than men to have had a dental visit in the past 12 months in both urban and rural areas.
4. In urban areas, white adults (70.2 percent) were more likely than Black (61.8 percent) and Hispanic (59.4 percent) adults to have a dental visit. In rural areas, white adults (59.1 percent) were more likely than Hispanic adults (45.7 percent) to have a dental visit.
5. In both urban and rural areas, the percentage of adults who had a dental visit increased as family income increased.