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State of Oral Health Equity in America 2022
The State of Oral Health Equity in America is the largest nationally representative survey focused exclusively on adults’ knowledge, attitudes, experiences, and behaviors related to oral health. The survey of more than 5,000 adults across the United States also collects information on how insurance coverage, oral health literacy, and access to a trusted provider can improve oral health opportunities and affect outcomes.
Key findings from the survey allow researchers to uncover trends in oral health equity gaps and provide oral health stakeholders with the information needed to work on closing those gaps. Key findings from 2022 include:
- 96% of adults know there is a connection between the health of the mouth and the rest of the body.
- More adults identified cost as a reason they are likely to avoid future care in 2022 (43%) than in 2021 (38%).
- Nearly half of Hispanic adults, Asian adults, and Black adults report experiencing discrimination in an oral health setting.
- Black adults and American Indian or Native Alaskan adults are 2 and 3 times more likely, respectively, to visit the ED for a dental condition than white adults.
CareQuest Institute will continue to release in-depth reports based on findings from the second annual survey throughout 2022. You can also learn more about findings from the first survey in 2021.
Reports
Americans Are Still Not Getting the Dental Care They Need
How Depression Is Linked to Oral Health
Oral Health and the LGBTQ+ Community
The Glaring Scope of Racial Disparities in Oral Health
Blog
Why We Created the Oral Health Equity in America Survey — and What We Found
Webinar
How’s America’s Oral Health? Barriers to Care, Common Problems, and Ongoing Inequity
Methodology
The study was designed by CareQuest Institute for Oral Health. Results were collected by NORC at the University of Chicago in January–February 2021 and January–February 2022 from adults 18 and older on the AmeriSpeak panel. AmeriSpeak is a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the United States’ (US) household population. Randomly selected US households were sampled using area probability and address-based sampling, with a known, non-zero probability of selection from NORC National Sample Frame. Sampled households were contacted by US mail, telephone, and field interviewers. A sampling unit of 17,603 was used, with a final sample size of 5,682 and a final weighted cumulative response rate of 4.0%. All data presented account for appropriate sample weights. The margin of error for the survey is 1.75%.