Recent reports have revealed that over 50% of Australian children aged between six and ten have some level of tooth decay. Two studies were released on Friday, presenting the results of major national surveys into the country’s dental health by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. The first report was a summary of overall dental health and the second detailed the comparisons between children living in urban surroundings and those in more remote areas – both combine old and new data on the subject.
As well as revealing that decay is present in over 50% of that age group, the research concluded that cases of tooth decay in five-year-olds had increased since 2007, when the last survey was conducted. One of the report’s authors, Professor Kaye Roberts-Thomson, described this as a ‘real problem’ for Australia, adding that ‘people thought decay was going away. It increased in the mid 1990’s, and that could be all sorts of things, like less tap water, more sugar, it could be lots of different things.’
It is perhaps unsurprising that the results revealed that people with a lower income have significantly poorer dental health, with levels of decay and poor oral hygiene increasing as income falls; people with income that falls into the 60,000 – 80,000 AUD bracket enjoy a much better quality of oral health. That is to say; people with more money have healthier teeth.