Children in the Republic reach adulthood with more of their teeth intact than do their counterparts in Northern Ireland, a conference has heard.
The average five-year-old living on the North's eastern seaboard has three teeth either decayed, missing or filled, compared with one tooth for a five-year-old living on the eastern seaboard in the Republic.
Among older schoolchildren, teenagers from the Republic have less than half the number of decayed, missing or filled teeth found in Northern 15-year-olds. These figures were revealed by Dr Ruth Freeman, senior lecturer in dental public health, Queen's University, Belfast, at an oral health forum at University College Cork yesterday.
She was speaking on the eve of a two-day conference on fluoridation, which will be opened by the President, Mrs McAleese, this morning. While the public water supply in the Republic is fluoridated, there has been strong opposition to the practice in the North. Although water supplies at Holywood, Co Down, and Tandragee, Co Armagh, had been fluoridated, the latter ceased fluoridation in March.
The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, recently set up a fluoridation forum to look at the issue in the Republic. Northern Ireland has the highest prevalence of dental caries in the UK and Ireland. Only 40 per cent of five-year-olds have decay-free teeth, a figure which drops to just over 20 per cent by the time they are 14. "We know that children in the North, and in the South in particular, have good dental health knowledge," said Dr Freeman. "But when we looked at behaviour, we saw that children are still drinking fizzy drinks and eating sweets in between meals."
Prof Cecily Kelleher, of NUI Galway's Centre for Health Promotion Studies, told the forum that almost 70 per cent of girls brushed their teeth more than once a day, compared to 47 per cent of boys.