Decay Bites Ever Deeper Into Poor Children's Teeth

Decay bites ever deeper into poor children's teeth

Survey shows growing north-south gap in dental health

Anushka Asthana
Sunday September 4, 2005
The Observer


Remarkable new statistics have revealed a widening gap in the levels of decay in children's teeth in the poorest and richest parts of Britain.

Five-year-olds in some of the poorest parts of the country, such as Merthyr in Wales, North Kirklees in Yorkshire, and Argyll and Clyde in west Scotland, have an average of almost four teeth decayed, missing or filled, while their counterparts in Maidstone Weald in Kent, and Suffolk Coastal, near Felixstowe, have an average of under 0.5.

The study, by the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry, reveals that areas with the lowest rates of tooth decay are exclusively from the south of England and the Midlands. The worst areas are restricted to parts of Wales, Scotland and the north of England.

Glasgow and Lanarkshire in Scotland; Preston, Bolton, and Blackburn in Lancashire; Knowsley in Merseyside and Bradford in West Yorkshire are all in the bottom 10, each with an average of more than three decayed teeth per child.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1562421,00.html

There's a section in Jonathan Kozol's book Savage Inequalities that paints a grim picture of schoolchildren who put up with suffering that would overwhelm an adult: rotten, impacted, decayed teeth.

He had had lots of dental work done at home, then he came to the US for grad school. He wasn't from a poor family.

First grad school didn't have a dental school associated with it. His advisor left, didn't take him, he started all over at a second school. It had a dental school.

Every couple of weeks he went in to have dental students upgrade the dental work he had had done in Britain (around Avonbury, then up around the Orkneys). It took a year.