Rural children suffer poorer oral health

The State of Victoria's Children Report (October 2006) identified that children living in rural areas were more likely to have poor oral health, with more toothache and fillings and more tooth extraction and dental treatment in hospital, than their metropolitan peers.

While the report generally tells a good news story about how Victoria’s children are faring against a broad range of measures of health and wellbeing, safety, development and learning, it also highlights some newly emerging health concerns affecting children and young people, such as obesity, eating disorders and mental ill health.

In her introduction to the report, The Hon Sherryl Garbutt, then Minister for Children and Minister for Community Services noted that "It shows that not all children in Victoria are faring as well as broad statewide data suggest. The evidence shows there are inequalities in outcome for different groups of children, and clearly points to a need for policies to tackle these."

Children from rural areas had almost twice as many teeth extracted and required hospital admission and treatment under general anaesthetic twice as often as those from metropolitan areas.

The report notes that "oral health guidelines for Victorians 2003 include the following recommendations for oral health:
• Drink plenty of tap water.
• Limit consumption and frequency of sugary drinks (milk or flavoured milks are preferable to sugary drinks).
• Teeth should be cleaned at least twice a day.
• Children should use low fluoride toothpaste from two to seven years of age.
• An adult should assist a child aged under seven years of age to brush his or her teeth."

During the forthcoming Federal election VOHA will be seeking commitments from candidates to introduce polices that will help to address the serious disadvantage experienced by rural children.

Dental treatment one of Life's Essentials

Dental treatment features high on the list of life's essentials identified in a Bulletin published by the Towards New Indicators of Disadvantage project.

This project is a collaboration between researchers at the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) and analysts from the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL) and Anglicare, Diocese of Sydney.

The Bulletin notes that the aim of the research is "to develop new indicators that can be used alongside existing instruments (e.g. poverty lines) to better identify the extent and nature of disadvantage in Australia. The findings will help to fill the gaps that currently exist in conceptual thinking and empirical research on poverty and related issues of deprivation and social exclusion. They will also provide new information on the circumstances of those who use welfare services, and a better evidence base to inform policy development".

In a postal survey answered by over 2700 people, 'dental treatment when needed' ranked 7th out of 61 ‘essentials of life’, which covered a broad range of items, activities, opportunities and other characteristics that previous research (in Australia and other countries) has shown to be associated with deprivation and social exclusion and thus contribute to disadvantage.

With a Federal election scheduled for later this year, VOHA will be drawing the attention of the major parties to this research as yet further evidence of the importance of building dental funding measures into their policy platforms.