Despite the connections between oral health and overall health, 36 percent of adults have gone more than a year without seeing a dentist, according to the CDC and cited by WalletHub, which released its list of states with the best dental health.
For the list, which ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia, WalletHub analyzed 26 indicators of dental wellness, including treatment costs, adults with low life satisfaction due to oral conditions and share of patients who visited a dentist in the last year.
Below is the ranking of states with the best and worst dental health and their overall score:
1. Wisconsin: 75.69
2. Illinois: 75.65
3. Minnesota: 74.84
4. District of Columbia: 74.66
5. Connecticut: 76.48
6. North Dakota: 71.10
7. Michigan: 70.74
8. Massachusetts: 69.24
9. Idaho: 68.81
10. Iowa: 66.51
11. New Jersey: 65.56
12. Ohio: 63.02
13. Washington: 62.70
14. Hawaii: 62.43
15. Rhode Island: 62.03
16. South Dakota: 61.76
17. Nebraska: 60.90
18. Georgia: 60.64
19. Oregon: 60.58
20. Arizona: 60.27
21. Indiana: 60.08
22. Delaware: 59.35
23. Kansas: 59.26
24. Virginia: 58.35
25. Maryland: 57.38
26. New Hampshire: 57.26
27. Vermont: 56.64
28. Colorado: 55.50
29. Utah: 55.29
30. Missouri: 54.94
31. Pennsylvania: 54.53
32. North Carolina: 53.94
33. New York: 53.82
34. Maine: 50.99
35. New Mexico: 50.54
36. Nevada: 50.49
37. Oklahoma: 50.03
38. Wyoming: 47.48
39. South Carolina: 46.91
40. California: 46.59
41. Tennessee: 46.53
42. Florida: 46.35
43. Kentucky: 45.42
44. Alaska: 42.39
45. Texas: 42.28
46. Alabama: 41.31
47. Louisiana: 40.39
48. Montana: 39.82
49. West Virginia: 36.36
50. Arkansas: 34.63
51. Mississippi: 33.74