Scotland's National Dental Inspections Programme 2003

NDIP 2003

Detailed Inspection Results

What is the picture of dental health in Primary I children across Scotland?

Figure 8 illustrates the decay experience of 5 year olds across Scotland. The contrast between Borders and Argyll and Clyde, for example, shows the variation in dental health that exists and highlights the difficulty in making generalisations about the overall dental health of five year old children in Scotland.

Figure 8. Showing tooth decay in 5-year-olds in each health board across Scotland in 2003

Figure 9 shows the average number of decayed, missing and filled teeth per child for each Health Board and emphasises how little of the total decay experience in this age group is made up of fillings or missing teeth. The vertical bars indicate the 95% confidence limits associated with each value and illustrate the limited extent to which the figure can be interpreted as a "league table". Thus, while there are real differences between the Boards at the extreme right of the figure and those on the far left, it is unwise to ascribe too much importance to minor variation in the detailed ranking positions of Boards near to one another in the figure.

Figure 9. Average number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth per child for each health board.

What are the detailed decay results for each Health Board across Scotland?

Table 5 below shows in detail the decay results for each Health Board. It gives a measure of the total obvious decay experience (decayed, missing and filled teeth) and a breakdown of the figure into each of these elements.

The variation in dental disease levels and in its individual components (decayed, missing and filled teeth) seen in past SHBDEP surveys remains evident in this year's NDIP inspection; for example, Greater Glasgow and Argyll & Clyde with an average of 3.45 and 3.67 teeth respectively do not compare well with Borders and Shetland where the figures are 1.29 and 2.06. The variation in the percentage of children in each Health Board with severe decay is also striking (6.6% in Borders to 20.2% in Argyll & Clyde).

%

number of

% decay

%

Health Board

no obvious decay

decayed, missing,

for those

severe

experience

and filled teeth

decayed

missing

filled

with decay

decay

Argyll & Clyde
34.2

3.67

2.7

0.68

0.29

5.58

20.2

Ayrshire & Arran
46.7

2.30

1.54

0.45

0.32

4.32

17.9

Borders
62.6

1.29

0.58

0.40

0.32

3.45

6.6

Dumfries & Galloway
50.9

2.30

1.75

0.37

0.17

4.67

15.4

Fife
54.3

2.41

1.47

0.71

0.22

5.27

11.4

Forth Valley
45.5

2.58

1.59

0.74

0.25

4.72

12.6

Grampian
48.9

2.22

1.56

0.42

0.24

4.35

16.2

Greater Glasgow
35.2

3.45

2.26

0.96

0.23

5.32

18.2

Highland
47.7

2.58

1.79

0.60

0.19

4.94

11.9

Lanarkshire
40.7

3.08

2.04

0.80

0.24

5.19

16.1

Lothian
46.3

2.66

2.00

0.44

0.21

4.94

13.6

Orkney
45.7

2.67

2.06

0.29

0.32

4.91

18.5

Shetland
51.6

2.06

1.45

0.29

0.32

4.25

11.2

Tayside
55.3

2.17

1.28

0.68

0.21

4.84

13.4

Western Isles
35.6

2.83

2.25

0.05

0.53

4.40

11.6

Table 5. Detailed decay results for each health board across Scotland

Continue to the fourth part of the detailed results or back to Contents List

Contact Us \| A to Z Index \| Search the University \| Site Map
Maintained by: B.C.Bonner at DHSRU	Disclaimer\| Privacy \| Valid XHTML1.0