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National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a series of cross-sectional surveys, directed by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).  NCHS maintains a Web site (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs) for all the surveys they direct, including NHANES.  Public release data sets and extensive documentation are available for download from their Web site.

Oral health was included in the NHANES fielded during 1971-1975 (NHANES I), 1982-1984 (Hispanic HANES), 1988-1994 (NHANES III), and the current NHANES, which began in 1999.  The current NHANES is designed as a continuous survey, with data released in 2-year increments (1999-2000, 2001-2002, etc.). 

The oral health components of NHANES include both questionnaire and examination components.  The questionnaire instrument includes items about quality of life, self-assessed oral health status and utilization of the oral health care system.  The examination for the period 1999-2006 includes assessments of tooth loss, tooth decay (caries), gum diseases (periodontal diseases), enamel fluorosis, injury, and dental sealants (plastic coatings applied to pit-and-fissured tooth surfaces to prevent tooth decay).

Publications reporting findings from NHANES oral health data:

Can we do the RSS feed thing from PubMed here?

http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/erss.cgi?rss_guid=0_kb_yArBnhyrcvjB7vWIRUl9Eic49X57RlYSb9T-SN

NHANES 1999-2002 and 1988-1994
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Surveillance for dental caries, dental sealants, tooth retention, edentulism, and enamel fluorosis — United States, 1988–1994 and 1999–2002.  In: Surveillance Summaries, August 26, 2005.  MMWR 2005:54(No. SS-3).  Available at: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm or as Adobe Acrobat PDF http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/ss/ss5404.pdf.

NHANES 1988-1991
Special issue of the Journal of Dental Research. February 1996.  Volume 75. pp 617-725.

NHANES 1971-1975
Harvey C, Kelly JE. Decayed, missing, and filled teeth among persons 1-74 years. Vital Health Stat 11. 1981 Aug;(223):1-55. No abstract available. PMID: 15806755 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_223.pdf