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Objectives: From the 2001 Korean National Examination Health and Nutrition survey, using research data based on of the interviews on health, the relationship between socioeconomic factors and dietary habits for the occurrence of dental caries for among adults over 20 years old were examined. Specific factors affecting the dental caries were evaluated. Methods: From the research data of the health survey, 26,772 adults aged over 20 years old were used as research subjects. In this sample, 25,203 respondents indicated that they did not have dental caries and 1,569 that they did, while 25,540 respondents indicated that they did not have any dental examination and 1,232 that they did. For the respondents with dental caries and for those who had have received a dental examination, socio-economic factors, such as age, sex, marital status, location, education level, occupation, monthly household income, and medical insurance coverage and dietary habits, factors, such as average number of snacks, kinds of snacks, number of dining outs, and number of fried food intakes, were considered. The effect of socio-economic factors and dietary habits on the adult dental caries was investigated. All the data analyses were carried out using SUDAAN 9.0 program, which is specifically designed for significance testing of samples. The level of significance was set at 5%. Results: Regarding the relevance of socio-economic factors and dietary habits on the occurrence of dental caries, age, sex, marital status, occupation, average number of snacks, kinds of snacks, and number of fried food intakes were found to be significant (p<0.05). Regarding dental examination, age, sex, marital status, occupation, monthly household income, average number of snacks, and number of fried food intakes were significant (p<0.05). Second, age, which was significant in causing dental caries, in relation to both the indication on dental caries and the indication on dental examination tended to lower the probability of dental caries occurrence with increasing age. For the occupational factor, labor workers and other workers had a higher probability of dental caries occurrence than with non-labor workers. Increased fried food intakes increased the probability of dental caries occurrence. Third, apart from age, occupation, and number of fried food intakes, which were significant factors in relation to both the indication on dental caries and the indication on dental examination, for the indication on dental caries, marital status and kind of snacks were significant in causing dental caries. For the indication on dental examination, monthly household income was significant in causing dental caries. Conclusion: Socio-economic factors and dietary habits were verified to affect the occurrence of dental caries in adults. In order to prevent adult dental caries and understand the related characteristics, research on dental caries, should be conducted with consideration for general characteristics like socioeconomic factors such as age distribution and occupation, In addition, various factors, such as the number of average food intakes, kind of cariogenic snacks, number of fried food intakes, and kind of cariogenic or fried food, should be researched and the subsequent results should be utilized in improving oral health management and oral health education.