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About the National Oral Health Surveillance System (NOHSS)
NOHSS Web site:  http://www.cdc.gov/nohss

The National Oral Health Surveillance System (NOHSS) is a collaborative effort between CDC's Division of Oral Health and the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD).  NOHSS is designed to monitor the burden of oral disease, use of the oral health care delivery system, and the status of community water fluoridation on both a national and state level.

NOHSS tracks oral health surveillance indicators based on data sources and surveillance capacity available to most states. The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and the Association of State and Territorial Chronic Disease Program Directors (CDD) were instrumental in developing the framework for chronic disease surveillance indicators, including these oral health indicators.

BRFSS is the data source for the adult indicators in NOHSS:  past year dental visit, past year dental cleaning, complete tooth loss among adults aged 65 and older, lost 6 or more teeth among adults aged 65 and older.  The first three of these indicators are also Chronic Disease Indicators (CDI) numbers 90-92. (Learn more about BRFSS)

Differences in the estimates published by NOHSS and CDI are due to a difference in methods:  NOHSS publishes estimates that are not adjusted for age; CDI publishes estimates adjusted for age.  The difference between NOHSS and CDI estimates is larger for states that have populations with age distributions that are different from the U.S. as a whole.