High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Friday, May 16, 2008
Dental Health
Children in Scotland have substantially higher levels of recorded decay compared with other European countries.
The overall estimate of obvious decay experience in 5 year olds in Scotland is 2.16 teeth per child in 2005/06. This is an improvement on the figures of 2.36 and 2.76 found in the 2004 and 2003 surveys respectively. It is higher than the corresponding value recorded recently for England (1.49) (2003/04), but slightly lower than that recorded for Wales (2.42) (2003/04).
The Scottish Government has established a National Indicator with the target that 60% of primary 1 children will have no signs of dental disease by 2010.
Latest figures, for the school year 2005/06, show 54% of Scottish five year olds with no obvious decay experience. This is an improvement compared with 51% in 2003/04 and 45% in 2002/03. However the situation varies across Scotland, with the least deprived areas already meeting the target of 60% and much higher levels of decay in the most deprived areas.
Sources: 1987/88-1999/00 SHBDEP (Scottish Health Boards' Dental Epidemiological Programme)
2002/03-2005/06 NDIP (National Dental Inspection Programme)
Further Information