Approximately 86.8 million people across the United States have visited the dentist in the past year (About 3.7 million in Pennsylvania). Americans will spend over $46.3 billion on dental services. The map below shows visits to the dentist per state across the US for the past 12 months. The darker areas represent a higher percentage of the adult population base that have gone to the dentist while the lighter areas represent a smaller percentage of the adult population base that have gone to the dentist in the past year.

 

Dental Visits and Spending in Central Pennsylvania

In Central Pennsylvania, approximately 670,000 individuals have visited the dentist in the past year, which represents less than a third of the total population. Total spending on dental services by individuals in the region was just about $350 million (an average per capita rate of $376.39). Out of all of the Central PA counties, Cumberland County has the highest percentage of population that visited the dentist in the past year and the highest per capita average for dental services spending. About 31% of the county's population went to the dentist and spent an average of $424.82 per person.

The map below shows the total number of visits to the dentist in the past 12 months across Central Pennsylvania by zip codes. The darker colored areas represent a higher number of people who visited the dentist in that time frame, while lighter areas represent a lower number of people.

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Dental Insurance

Across Central Pennsylvania, approximately 646,000 people are covered by dental insurance, which means that about 24,000 individuals who visited the dentist in the past 12 months were not insured (assuming that all individuals who are insured were a part of the total group that visited the dentist in the past 12 months). That means that about 96.5% of the individuals who went to the dentist were insured. A hypothesis that we could draw from this information would be - areas that have more individuals with insurance are more likely to have a higher percentage of the population visiting the dentist.

In looking at the graph below, this assumption is possibly accurate. The chart displays the percentage of individuals who visited the dentist versus the percentage of individuals who carry dental insurance. The red bars represent the percentage of the population that have dental insurance and the blue bars represent the percentage that visited the dentist in the past 12 months. In most of the Central Pennsylvania counties, the lower the percentage of insured, the lower the number of visits to the dentist. There are more than likely other factors that will have an effect on these numbers as well (such as household income and access to care to name a few).

Consumer Behavior and Spending

Here are a couple of quick facts on consumer behaviors and spending in Central Pennsylvania as it relates to dental products:

• Central Pennsylvanians spend $46.3 million on oral hygiene products
• About 65.6% of the total population purchased a new toothbrush in the past 6 months
• 49.5% of individuals in the region used dental floss in the past 6 months
• Approximately 16.0% used dental rinse in the past 6 months
• 7.1% of the total population used a tooth whitener (not toothpaste) in the past 6 months
• Approximately 7.6% of the population used a toothache remedy in the past 6 months

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