Poor Dental Health In Deprived Children Needs To Be Tackled From Birth

Oral health strategies to combat very high levels of tooth decay in children from deprived areas need to start from birth. That’s the conclusion of a large-scale study of the dental health of three-year olds published in the latest edition of the British Dental Journal. Dental inspections of over 4,000 children in Greater Glasgow carried out for the study found tooth decay (caries) in at least a quarter of the children examined. Amongst children from deprived areas, the incidence of decay was even higher, with a third of those surveyed exhibiting evidence of caries. The number of decayed, missing or filled teeth (dmft) – a commonly used measure for assessing oral health -in the children seen from the least deprived areas was 0.3. Read full post…