2025 was an unsettling year for dental hygienists, truth be told.
This year’s top stories, based on page views, included as our No. 1 article, a September BMC Health Services report revealing that hygienists are deeply unhappy with their pay, career advancement prospects, and the support they receive from clinicians.
Rounding that out were articles highlighting issues that trace back to healthcare access and the dire shortage of dental hygienists. Lastly, reader favorites included a cheating husband who was outed by a toothbrushing app and a healthy middle-age woman who died from a condition caused by a typically benign mouth bacterium.
Sit back and enjoy this year’s top dental hygiene articles from DrBicuspid.
5. Often benign oral germ causes condition that kills healthy woman
A healthy 52-year-old woman died after developing a pyopneumothorax, a collection of pus and air between the lung and the chest wall, caused by a typically benign mouth bacterium. The case report was published in Case Reports in Pulmonology.
The infection appeared to be caused by Streptococcus intermedius (S. intermedius), which lives in the oral cavity and is normally benign but may be an aggressive pathogen in pyopneumothorax, the authors wrote.
4. Unexpected oral hygiene tool nabs cheating husband
A woman in the U.K. learned about her husband’s affair, thanks to the electronic toothbrushing app she downloaded to track her kids’ oral hygiene habits. Find out how she discovered the affair.
3. Opinion: Oral preventive assistants won't fix the dental workforce problem
Back in May 2025, Tracee Dahm, MS, RDH, responded to the ADA’s “Emerging and Current Models to Address Dental Team Workforce Activities by State,” report in which several states introduced a new role: the oral preventive assistant, who, with condensed training, can perform gingival scaling and tooth polishing on "healthy" patients.
OPAs, Dahm said, are not the solution to the nationwide shortage of dental hygienists. In fact, the measure raises serious concerns for hygienists, dentists, and patients.
2. U.S. oral health is at a standstill. Hygienists may be the answer
Systemic barriers to oral healthcare persist in the U.S., but expanding dental hygienist autonomy may improve access to care, reported a white paper issued by the American Dental Hygienists’ Association.
Based on the findings, U.S. states should revise restrictions on the settings in which dental hygienists can practice and reimburse them directly, the ADHA said.
1. Dental hygienists aren’t happy
Many U.S. dental hygienists report not being paid fairly, have few chances for advancement, and receive little support despite experiencing pride and teamwork in their work, reported a study published on September 1 in BMC Health Services Research. These sentiments, the study’s authors report, may contribute to instability in the overall workforce, the authors wrote.
