Wisconsin has once again topped the list of best U.S. states for dental health in the annual analysis conducted by personal finance website WalletHub. The Badger State also claimed the top spot in WalletHub's 2020 and 2019 rankings.
The list of best states for dental health in 2021 remained largely unchanged from prior years. In addition to Wisconsin, Illinois, the District of Columbia, Minnesota, and Connecticut rounded out the top five places.
At the other end of the rankings, Mississippi ranked last in WalletHub's 2021 analysis. The Magnolia State also ranked last in 2020 and has never broken out of the bottom five.
The WalletHub analysis grades states on both oral health and dental care and habits. It includes 26 total metrics with different weights, considering everything from the share of adolescent and adult dental visits to whether states have an oral health plan.
Some states shined in certain areas while falling shorts in others. For instance, New Jersey ranked second on WalletHub's oral health criteria but fell to No. 42 for dental care and habits. Similarly, Vermont cracked the top five spots for dental care and habits but came up at No. 34 for oral health.
The analysis also looked at individual categories, including dental treatment costs, sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, smoking habits, and the number of dentists per capita. In the last category, the District of Columbia ranked as having the most dentists per capita, rising from the No. 2 spot in 2020. At the other end of the spectrum, Louisiana once again had the least number of dentists per capita.
See the infographic below for more findings from the 2021 WalletHub analysis.
