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Primary Kids from Poor Background Have More Tooth Decay Than Wealthy Counterparts

by Kathy Jones on Dec 27 2012 6:19 PM

 Primary Kids from Poor Background Have More Tooth Decay Than Wealthy Counterparts
New figures released by the Scottish government reveal that nearly half of primary children from a poor background had tooth decay compared to just 20 percent of children from wealthiest areas.
According to the figures, more than 67 percent of all P1 children in Scotland did not have any sign of tooth decay in 2011-12 which shows an improvement of 1.5 percent from previous year.

Though the public health minister, Michael Matheson claimed that the improvement was the result of significant investment in dental health by the SNP government, critics claimed that the government is widening the gap for dental health provision between poor and rich children with 50.5 percent of children from poor backgrounds having no sign of tooth decay compared to 81.2 percent of children from rich families.

“It’s a failure on the education side and it symptomatic of the way the SNP has tried to say it has put more resources into improving access to dentists, while at the same time neglecting other areas of public health. It appears the SNP government has failed to put enough resources into education to teach children on how best to look after their teeth”, Tory MSP Alex Johnstone said.

Source-Medindia


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