Oral health: children - NHS board data
NHS Board comparisons
The percentage of children with no obvious decay experience and the average number of decayed, missing and filled teeth per child ranges widely between NHS boards, reflecting to some extent patterns of socio-economic deprivation.
In 2023, 81.9% of Primary 7 (11-year-old) children in Scotland were found to have no obvious decay experience in their permanent teeth. This ranged from 74.3% in NHS Fife to 91.3% in NHS Orkney (Chart 1a [41Kb]).
In 2020, 73.5% of Primary 1 (5-year-old) children in Scotland were found to have no obvious decay experience in their primary teeth. This ranged from 68.7% in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to 84.6% in NHS Orkney (Chart 1b [33Kb]).
Data sourced from the National Dental Inspection Programme NDIP publications - Primary 7 (2023) and Primary 1 (2020). PHS did not publish an NDIP report in 2021 as the programme was paused in March 2020 and did not take place in the academic year 2020/21. NDIP was partially remobilised for the academic year 2021/22 and an abbreviated report was published in October 2022.
Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.
