ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oral Health
Sec. Oral Epidemiology
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/froh.2025.1590604
Self-perceived general health and its impact on oral health in the U.S. adult population: NHANES 2015-2018
Provisionally accepted
Fahad Alali1
Abdulrahman Al-Safi2Al-Jawharah Al-Ajmi3Fatemah Alshammari3Sarah Saqer4
Woroud Al-Sulimmani5Ahmed Balkhoyor6
Hend Alqaderi7,8
Hesham Alhazmi6*- 1West Mubarak AlKabeer Polyclinic, Ministry of Health (Kuwait), Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 2Hawalli, Ministry of Health (Kuwait), Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 3Ishbiliya Meteb Al-Shalahi Polyclinic, Ministry of Health (Kuwait), Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 4West Mishref Polyclinic, Ministry of Health (Kuwait), Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 5Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Jahra Hospital, Ministry of Health (Kuwait), Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 6Department of Preventive Dentistry, Umm al-Qura University, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
- 7School of Dental Medicine, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- 8Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait City, Kuwait
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Introduction: Oral health is crucial to overall well-being and is often described as a "window to general health" due to the strong bidirectional relationship between the two. This paper aims to assess the relationship between self-perceived general health and oral health among U.S. adults.Methods: This study analyzed data from the 2015–2018 NHANES, comprising 11,566 U.S. adults. Statistical analyses included weighted percentages, chi-square tests, and logistic regression to evaluate the relationships between self-perceived general health status and oral health predictors.Results: Each unit increase in DMFT (decayed, missing due to caries, and filled teeth) resulted in a 2% increase in the odds of reporting fair to poor health compared with excellent to good health (p < 0.01). Additionally, for each additional decayed permanent tooth and each missing tooth, the odds of reporting fair to poor health compared with excellent to good health increased by approximately 38% (p = 0.004) and 43% (p = 0.010), respectively.Conclusion This study suggests that higher DMFT scores, untreated dental decay, and missing teeth are associated with poorer self-perceived general health among U.S. adults. We recommend incorporating oral health assessments into general health check-ups, raising public awareness about their connection, and improving collaboration between medical and dental professionals to enhance patient care and preventive measures.
Keywords: overall wellbeing, Oral Health, DMFT, Dental decay, general health
Received: 10 Mar 2025; Accepted: 27 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alali, Al-Safi, Al-Ajmi, Alshammari, Saqer, Al-Sulimmani, Balkhoyor, Alqaderi and Alhazmi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hesham Alhazmi, Department of Preventive Dentistry, Umm al-Qura University, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
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