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 has reported water fluoridation statistics periodically since 1956. The Water Fluoridation Census (Census) was published periodically from 1963 through 1992, reporting data compiled from the EPA, U.S. Census Bureau, and surveys of state drinking water and oral health programs. The CDC has been the lead agency in this effort since 1975, and an objective for water fluoridation has been included among the Healthy People national objectives since 1979.

Many of the earlier reports are available below in Portable Document Format (PDF) files. You will need Acrobat Reader (a free application) to view and print these documents. PDF files of these reports were created by scanning archived paper documents, and may not be compatible with software used to read electronic text files as audio files. Persons with disabilities experiencing problems accessing these files should contact OralHealth@cdc.gov, or call (404) 639-3534.

Historical Reports on Fluoridation

Years	U.S. Statistics	State Statistics	Map of State Status	Map of County Status	MMWR
2008	View	View
2006	View	View	View	View	View
2004	View	View	View
20021	View	View	View
20001	View	View	View		View
1992	View	PDF (43Mb)	View
1989	PDF (8Mb)
1988	PDF (866K)
1985	PDF (42Mb)
1975	PDF (7Mb)
1969	PDF (5Mb)
19692	PDF (3.7Mb)
1967	PDF (2.7Mb)
1966	PDF (2.5Mb)
1965	PDF (1.5Mb)
1964	PDF (1.3Mb)
1958	PDF (290K)
1956	PDF (321K)
1952 from Journal ADA3	PDF (892K)

Footnotes

1. The 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 national and state statistics pages were abstracted from the report: Populations receiving optimally fluoridated public drinking water – United States, 1992–2006. MMWR 2008; 57(27):737–741.
2. This publication provided a summary of identified naturally fluoridated water systems, but was not a fluoridation census of the United States.
3. 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 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: April 27, 2012
Page last modified: April 27, 2012
Content source: Division of Oral Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion