Child Dental Health Survey to start in autumn
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- Published: Monday, 04 March 2013 08:28
- Written by News Editor
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The survey involves a short dental examination at school with a random sample of children aged 5, 8, 12 and 15 followed by a postal questionnaire for parents and guardians. An innovation for 2013 is a self-completion questionnaire for 12 and 15-year-olds, allowing children to record their own dental care regime.
The work is being carried out on behalf of the Health and Social Care Information Centre with funding provided by the Department of Health in each country. The research consortium is led by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and includes the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and five University Dental Schools (Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, University College London and Kings College London).
Professor Jimmy Steele CBE, Head of the School of Dental Sciences at Newcastle University, said ‘The national dental surveys are unique in the world. For forty years they have allowed us to understand why our children’s teeth are as they are and to predict how they will be as they grow up, allowing us to plan and improve dental health.’
Dental teams are being recruited from the areas local to the schools that are selected to take part. Dentists and dental nurses will receive a comprehensive training programme prior to the fieldwork to clarify understanding and application of the examination criteria. All examinations will follow a set procedure and use the same criteria for all children within each age group, although the clinical parameters measured will vary between age groups.
The last survey, in 2003, showed that obvious decay experience in the permanent teeth of 8, 12 and 15-year-old children had decreased significantly since 1983 to its lowest recorded level.
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