It seems so, in the United States at least, according to Joseph Worthington a dentist in Fairfield, USA. He told reporters: “Many people see their dental care as secondary. If you didn’t have pain you didn’t make an appointment.”

He added that many people were not served well with their dental insurance policies, with premium costs being very high and not covering sufficiently dental health problems.

Dr. Worthington’s view seems to resonate with respondents to a recent poll carried out by Gallup-Healthways, a clinical research data company based in Nashville and Washington, D.C. The company asked 350,000 people and found that 34% of them had not seen their dentist at all last year; even for a check up.

This concerns Dr. Worthington and other dentists as he and they feel proper dental care, in particular dental hygiene is vitally important, not only from a health perspective but also from a social perspective.

The decline in visiting dentists is also concerning the American Dental Association (ADA) who says dentists’ incomes have fallen. This loss of income is also happening because more and more people are stopping taking out dental insurance.

Missed appointments are also taking their toll.

The latter is also something that concern many dentists in the UK. The last Government however reintroduced a fine for anyone failing to keep an appointment. Hopefully, this encourages most people to visit their NHS dentist more regularly.