High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Dental Health
Children in Scotland have substantially higher levels of recorded decay compared with other European countries.
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.
Over the past decade there has been an increasing trend in percentage of five year olds with no obvious dental decay. Latest figures for school year 2009/10 show 64% of Scottish 5 year olds with no obvious decay experience. This is an improvement compared with 57.7% in 2007/08. However the situation varies across Scotland, with the least deprived areas meeting the target of 60% and the most deprived areas failing to do so, although this is improving.
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Sources: 1987/88-1999/00 SHBDEP (Scottish Health Boards' Dental Epidemiological Programme)
2002/03-2009/10 NDIP (National Dental Inspection Programme)
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