Oral health: international data on 5-year-olds

Although the WHO Oral Health Country/Area Profile Programme holds a wealth of data on the dental health of children internationally, relatively few countries hold comparable data on 5/6-year-olds over a period of time to indicate trends.

Information on the caries experience of 5/6-year-old children surveyed between 2001 and 2006 is available for some countries, and presented in Table 1. In addition to variation in the average age of child surveyed (5 or 6 years), sample size and methodology varied considerably, and this must be taken into account when comparing results. For example, the data for some areas came from national surveys, whilst other studies, although labelled for example 'New Zealand', were local surveys and did not claim to be truly representative of that country.

Table 1: Mean number of decayed, missing and filled teeth per child (dmft) and the percentage of children 'caries free' in a range of countries, 5/6-year olds, 2001-2006

Country	Year	Mean dmft	% children  'caries free'
Barbados	2001	1.25	64
Czech Republic	2001	3.32	31.3
Denmark	2005	0.8	75.0
England and Wales	2006	1.5	61.2
Great Britain	2006	1.57	60.6
Hong Kong	2001	2.3	49
Macau	2001	4.5	17
New Zealand	2005	2.2	52
Northern Ireland	2002	1.8	52.5
Republic of Ireland (fluoridated areas)	2002	1	69.5
Republic of Ireland (non-fluoridated areas)	2002	1.7	52.5
SCOTLAND	2006	2.2	54.0
Singapore	2002	0.1	-
Sweden	2005	-	73
Thailand	2001	5.97	12.6

Source: WHO Oral Health Country/Area Profile Programme, accessed October 2007.

The average number of decayed, missing and filled teeth per child (dmft) ranged from 0.1 (Singapore) to 5.97 (Thailand), with Scotland at 2.2. The percentage of children free from obvious disease experience ('caries free') varied from 12.6% (Thailand) to 75% (Denmark), with Scotland at 54%. For both indicators, Scotland was worse than England and Wales, and Great Britain as a whole.

Figures allowing comparison of dental health in 5-year-olds between Scotland and other countries in Europe are also given in the National Dental Inspections Programme (NDIP) report for 2003, which shows that Scotland lags behind many other western European countries.