The following statistics are from Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General:

• Dental caries (tooth decay) is the single most common chronic childhood disease—5 times more common than asthma and 7 times more common than hay fever.
• Over 50 percent of 5- to 9-year-old children have at least one cavity or filling, and that proportion increases to 78 percent among 17-year-olds.
• There are striking disparities in dental disease by income. Poor children suffer twice as much dental caries as their more affluent peers, and their disease is more likely to be untreated. These poor-nonpoor differences continue into adolescence. One out of four children in America is born into poverty,and children living below the poverty line (annual income of $17,000 for a family of four) have more severe and untreated decay.
• Tobacco-related oral lesions are prevalent in adolescents who currently use smokeless (spit) tobacco.
• More than 51 million school hours are lost each year to dental-related illness.
• Employed adults lose more than 164 million hours of work each year due to dental disease or dental visits.