Dental Health Statistics: Fairfax County and Virginia

By Shield Dental Care · Published November 12, 2026

This page collects the main figures from our three studies of dental health and dental care in Fairfax County. Each figure gives its source and period and links to the study that shows the full tables, the method and the limits.

Fairfax County and Virginia side by side

County figures are CDC PLACES model-based estimates; the Virginia figures are the CDC BRFSS survey results they are modeled from. Registry counts are an upper bound on working dentists (see below).

Dental visits

• 74.5% of Fairfax County adults visited a dentist or dental clinic in the past year (2022; 95% interval 72.0% to 77.0%). CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 25.5% of Fairfax County adults, about one in four, had not seen a dentist in the past year. CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 68.4% of Virginia adults saw a dentist in the past year (2022). CDC BRFSS, 2022. data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 75.9% of adults in Burke and 69.1% in Springfield saw a dentist in the past year. CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 56.6% to 81.5%: the range across the 70 Census places in Fairfax County with an estimate. CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study

Tooth loss among adults 65 and older

• 7.4% of Fairfax County adults 65 and older had lost all their natural teeth (2022). CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 10.9% of Virginia adults 65 and older had lost all their natural teeth. CDC BRFSS, 2022. data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 5.3% in Burke and 7.8% in Springfield. CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study
• 2.5% to 15.2%: the range across Fairfax County's Census places. CDC PLACES, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov · Our dental visits study

Fluoride in Fairfax Water's tap water

• 0.6 mg/L at all four of Fairfax Water's sampling points in August 2026, the latest month in our fluoride study. Fairfax Water monthly water quality reports, January 2024 to August 2026. fairfaxwater.org · Our fluoride study
• 59 of 62 monthly results at the two distribution sites from January 2024 to August 2026 were between 0.6 and 0.8 mg/L. Fairfax Water monthly water quality reports, January 2024 to August 2026. fairfaxwater.org · Our fluoride study
• 0.7 mg/L is the level the U.S. Public Health Service has recommended since 2015 for water systems that add fluoride. Virginia Department of Health, Fluoridation. vdh.virginia.gov · Our fluoride study
• 4.0 mg/L is EPA's enforceable limit; Fairfax Water's highest monthly result in the period, 0.8 mg/L, was 20% of it. U.S. EPA. epa.gov · Our fluoride study

Dentist supply

• 1,383 dentists in the federal NPI registry listed a practice address in Fairfax County in November 2026: 120.5 per 100,000 residents. CMS NPPES NPI file, November 2026; Census ACS 2020-2024. download.cms.gov · Our dentists per resident study
• 106.0 per 100,000 across Northern Virginia, 85.1 in Virginia and 81.6 in the United States, on the same count. CMS NPPES NPI file, November 2026; Census ACS 2020-2024. download.cms.gov · Our dentists per resident study
• 185 dentist records in the five Burke and Springfield ZIP codes, 122.4 per 100,000 residents. CMS NPPES NPI file, November 2026; Census ACS 2020-2024. download.cms.gov · Our dentists per resident study
• 65.2 professionally active dentists per 100,000 residents in Virginia and 60.0 in the United States (205,088 dentists) in 2025, on the American Dental Association's stricter count. ADA Health Policy Institute, Supply of Dentists in the U.S.: 2001-2025. ada.org · Our dentists per resident study

Dental shortage areas

• 0 geographic dental Health Professional Shortage Areas in Northern Virginia. HRSA dental shortage areas, downloaded November 2026. data.hrsa.gov · Our dentists per resident study
• 166 current dental shortage designations in Virginia, 42 of them geographic; the rest cover population groups or facilities. HRSA dental shortage areas, downloaded November 2026. data.hrsa.gov · Our dentists per resident study
• 8 Fairfax County census tracts are in the one low-income population designation that reaches the county, “LI - Fairfax/Alexandria/Arlington Junction”; none is in a Burke or Springfield ZIP code. HRSA dental shortage areas, downloaded November 2026. data.hrsa.gov · Our dentists per resident study

What these figures mean for families in Burke and Springfield

• Most neighbors keep up with the dentist, but not all. About one in four Fairfax County adults went a year without a dental visit.
• Dental offices are not scarce here. The county is not a dental shortage area, so the practical questions are hours, location and insurance. Our guide to choosing a dentist in Springfield covers them.
• The tap water sits near the federal recommendation. Fairfax Water's monthly results have mostly stayed close to 0.7 mg/L; our fluoride study lists every month.

How we checked these figures

Each figure comes from one of our three studies, where a script reads the public source files and a second script checks the main figures against a different table, file or service. For this page, a separate check fetched the figures again on November 12, 2026: the county and place estimates from CDC's PLACES tables in a different format, Virginia's from CDC's Chronic Disease Indicators, the fluoride results from Fairfax Water's current reports, the dentist counts from the live NPI registry for the Burke and Springfield ZIP codes and from County Health Rankings as a sanity range, the population from the Census Bureau's data profile tables, the shortage areas from HRSA's Excel file, and the ADA figures from its website and workbook. All matched, except that CDC's two Virginia tables round tooth loss among seniors differently, by a tenth of a point. Download every figure on this page as a CSV (37 rows, with source, period and study for each).

Sources

• CDC, PLACES: Local Data for Better Health, 2025 release (2022 data). data.cdc.gov
• CDC, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2022. data.cdc.gov
• Fairfax Water, monthly water quality analytical reports, January 2024 to August 2026. fairfaxwater.org
• Virginia Department of Health, Fluoridation. vdh.virginia.gov
• U.S. EPA, Fluoride in Drinking Water. epa.gov
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, NPPES NPI file, November 2026; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024. download.cms.gov/nppes
• HRSA, Health Professional Shortage Areas: Dental Health. data.hrsa.gov
• ADA Health Policy Institute, Supply of Dentists in the U.S.: 2001-2025. ada.org

Limits

• The county and place figures on dental visits and tooth loss are CDC model-based estimates for 2022, not counts of patients.
• The NPI registry counts dentists with an active record, including some who have retired or moved, so its figures are an upper bound; the ADA count of professionally active dentists is lower.
• The fluoride figures cover Fairfax Water's system and its four published sampling points, not individual taps, wells or other utilities.
• The figures come from different years, because each source publishes on its own schedule. Each line gives its period.
• This is a summary of public data, not advice about anyone's dental care.

Cite this page

Shield Dental Care. “Dental Health Statistics: Fairfax County and Virginia.” Published November 12, 2026. https://shielddentalcare.com/research/dental-health-statistics-fairfax-county/

The figures are free to reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license with a link to this page.