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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-07-11 Daily Xml
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CHILD DENTAL HEALTH

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (14:47): My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. What are the latest statistics regarding the state of child dental health?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:47): I am very pleased to let the house know that dental caries (commonly termed 'dental decay') in school-aged children has been in decline since 2008. The level of dental caries in school kids across Australia (in fact, most of the world) had been increasing from the mid 1990s through to about 2007.

Pleasingly, analysis of South Australian School Dental Service oral health data for the years 2008-11 shows that decay rates have declined over this period. The six year old age group has had improvements of up to 6 per cent, with the average number of deciduous teeth with decay falling from 2.44 to 2.29 teeth; and South Australian 12-year-old children have improved by 13 per cent over that same period, with the average number of adult teeth with decay falling from 1.05 to 0.9 teeth per person.

Dental decay is characterised by chronic demineralisation of the structure of the tooth, and causes include deterioration in the quality of diet, the increased use of low fluoride toothpaste among children and the greater use of bottled water containing no fluoride (probably the biggest threat to the teeth of children). Exposure to fluoride and some other trace elements has the strongest influence on controlling dental decay.

The South Australian Dental Service has implemented a number of strategies over the past five years to address this, and a key preventive measure has been the increased provision of fluoride treatments and fissure sealants. A 'Lift the Lip' screening tool has been introduced in health checks to identify early signs of decay, and children identified as needing an oral health check are referred to either the public or private dental sector for treatment.

Education has been provided to pregnant women and midwives about the importance of oral health in pregnancy in the early years; and in 2009 copayments were removed for all preschool aged children, and this has resulted in a 55 per cent increase in the number of children aged one to four being seen by the School Dental Service in the past three years.

All of these measures, taken together, have had an impact and I am very pleased that we have started to see an improvement after a decline from the 1990s. I congratulate the School Dental Service, an excellent service that we have in our state, and I hope that the maintenance of these programs will continue to see improvements in the dental health of our children.

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