Utilization of Dental Care and Oral Health Outcomes in the United States: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2017-2020).

Purpose: This analysis aims to evaluate the association between the time since and reason for a patient's last dental appointment across clinical oral health outcomes.

Materials And Methods: We used data from the 2017-2020 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a cross-sectional, nationally-representative survey of noninstitutionalized US adults. The predictors were the time since and the reason for the last dental appointment (routine vs.