Adult Oral Health Indicators from BRFSS 2012-2020

NOHSS Adult Indicators provides national estimates of adult oral health from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for even years 2012 through 2020. The dataset includes median prevalence statistics across 50 states and the District of Columbia, covering topics like dental visits, tooth loss, and access to care.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in dental visit prevalence across states and years to assess changes in access to care.
• Model the relationship between demographic factors and tooth loss using state-level median prevalence estimates.
• Benchmark state-level performance on oral health indicators like dental cleaning against national medians.

Strengths

• Data sourced from the authoritative BRFSS public use datasets, a major national health survey.
• Provides a consistent time series across five data collection points from 2012 to 2020.
• National estimates are derived from data for 50 states and the District of Columbia, offering broad geographic coverage.

Limitations

• Estimates are not age-adjusted, which may limit direct comparability with other published health statistics.
• Data is only available for even years, resulting in gaps for odd years within the 2012-2020 period.
• Differences in definition or rounding may cause slight discrepancies with estimates from the primary BRFSS source.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Division of Oral Health.

Collection Method

Estimates prepared from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) public use data sets.

Time Range

2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 (even years).

Freshness

Dataset metadata was last updated in February 2025, though the underlying data covers up to 2020.

Geography

United States, with national estimates representing the median prevalence among 50 states and the District of Columbia.