Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Oral Health - Annual Dental Visits Among Adults by Year, New Jersey and the United States, 2012 to 2020
Indicator Report Data View Options
Why Is This Important?
Oral health care is an essential component of total health care. Good oral health enhances our ability to speak, smile, smell, taste, touch, chew, swallow, and convey our feelings and emotions through facial expressions. However, oral diseases, which range from cavities to oral cancer, cause pain and disability for millions. Regular dental visits provide an opportunity for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment as well as oral hygiene education. Regular dental visits are important in the prevention, early detection, and treatment of oral and craniofacial diseases and conditions for all ages. Adults need regular professional care to avoid tooth loss, the need for complex restorative treatment, and even systemic health problems. Even people without teeth need to be monitored regularly for oral health which may be affected by systemic conditions, medications, prosthetic devices, and exposure to tobacco. Infrequent use of dental services has been associated with poor oral health among adults.
Definition
Percentage of adults who last visited a dentist or a dental clinic in the last 12 months. Visits may have been for any reason, including visits to dental specialists, such as orthodontists. Question Text: "How long has it been since you last visited a dentist or a dental clinic for any reason? Interviewer Instruction: Include visits to dental specialists, such as orthodontists."
Data Notes
Data have been age-adjusted to the U.S. 2000 standard population.Data Sources
- Behavioral Risk Factor Survey, Center for Health Statistics, New Jersey Department of Health
(http://www.nj.gov/health/chs/njbrfs/) - Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/index.html)
How the Measure is Calculated
Numerator:
Number of adults with a dental visit in the last 12 months.Denominator:
Total number of survey respondents excluding those with missing, "Don't know/Not sure" or "Refused" responses.
Data Issues
Data from the New Jersey Behavioral Risk Factor Survey are intended to be representative of all non-institutionalized adult residents of New Jersey. Due to resource issues, however, adults with limited personal access to phone service or limited command of either English or Spanish are not represented. As with all surveys, also, some error results from nonresponse (e.g., refusal to participate in the survey or to answer specific questions), and faulty measurement (e.g., responses affected by social desirability or recall error). Data collection procedures intended to minimize such errors include the use of strict calling protocols, good questionnaire design, standardization of interviewer behavior, interviewer training, and frequent, on-site interviewer monitoring and supervision. Statistical weighting procedures are also used to minimize the potential impact of disproportionate representation of demographic subgroups defined in terms of age, sex, race, ethnicity, education level, marital status, home ownership, and county of residence. (See also [[a href="query/BRFSSQueryTechNotes.html" Behavioral Risk Factor Survey Data Description and Technical Notes]].)Related Health Objectives and Indicators
Health Initiative: HP2030
Healthy People 2030 Objective OH-08
U.S. Target: Increase use of the oral health care system to 45 percent of children, adolescents, and adults (age-adjusted) by 2030
https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/browse-objectives/oral-conditions
Health Initiative: HP2020
Healthy People 2020 Objective OH-7
U.S. Target: Increase the proportion of children, adolescents, and adults who used the oral health care system in the past year to 49.0 percent by 2020
https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/oral-health
Health Initiative: CDI
Chronic Disease Indicator ORH06
Description: Visited dentist or dental clinic in the past year among adults
https://www.cdc.gov/cdi/indicator-definitions/oral-health.html
Health Initiative: EPHT
Environmental Public Health Tracking Indicator PV-184
Description: Prevalence among adults of health insurance, dental visits, mammography, cervical cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening, cholesterol screening
https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/indicatorPages?selectedContentAreaAbbreviation=13&selectedIndicatorId=184