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Reference Statistics on Water Fluoridation
Status
The adjustment of fluoride in drinking water to levels optimum for oral
health was first implemented in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1945. The first
surveys on water fluoridation status in the United States were compiled in
1952 by the American Dental Association Council on Dental Health and the
American Water Works Association. The surveys identified which communities
were implementing this emerging technology. The U.S. Public Health Service
now reports periodically on the progress in water fluoridation as an
important public health surveillance indicator. The CDC has been the lead
agency in this effort since 1975.
Up to and including 1992, a Water Fluoridation Census (Census) was compiled by the CDC on a periodic basis. Starting with the 2000 National
Fluoridation Report, the
CDC Water Fluoridation Reporting System (WFRS) has
served as the data source for reporting the state and national water system
fluoridation information. The report differs from the earlier Census in that
the report compiles the total population of a state benefiting from water
with the optimal levels of fluoride, whereas the Census was a comprehensive
listing of individual public water systems (PWS). Because WFRS manages the
data on water fluoridation based on individual PWS, the results on state
totals are comparable between the earlier Census and the more recent
reports.
CDC has posted the historical water fluoridation reports it has conducted
since 1975. Published census reports are provided as references, and can be
used to determine water fluoridation progress and past trends. Reports
before 2000 have not been updated to meet current information technology
standards, and therefore may be difficult to use for some people. For more information, please contact the CDC's Division of
Oral Health at OralHealth@cdc.gov
Footnotes
- The numbers of people and percentage with fluoridated water has been
updated based on the most recent Intercessional Census estimates
published by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
- This publication provided a summary of identified naturally
fluoridated water systems, but was not a fluoridation census of the
United States.
- This article is the earliest known published listing of fluoridated
systems. An earlier listing by the American Water Works Association was
not as complete as this listing. This has been provided in compliance
with copyright protection by the American Dental Association (ADA) from
their archives of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA)
and is presented here with permission for viewing. Users can only use
this copy for their personal use, and cannot reproduce this without
obtaining copyright permission from the JADA.
 One or more documents on this Web page is available in Portable Document Format
(PDF). You will need Acrobat
Reader to view and print these documents.
Page last reviewed: September 17, 2008
Page last modified: September 17, 2008
Content source:
Division of Oral Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and
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