Social Determinants in Health and Tooth Decay in the UK

Running head: SOCIAL DETERMINANTS IN HEALTH AND TOOTH DECAY IN THE UK 1
Social Determinants in Health and Tooth Decay in the UK
Name
Institution
Course
Date

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS IN HEALTH AND TOOTH DECAY IN THE UK 2
Social Determinants in Health and Tooth Decay in the UK
Introduction
Background
The welfare of children is very sensitive to the sustainability of healthy future
generations. One component of this well-being is the oral health which is very influential in the
healthy development of the children and their readiness for school. According to the Public
Health England (2018), tooth decay is a major illness affecting a large number of young people
in the UK although it is highly controllable. Despite up to a quarter improvement of oral health
in the UK, the statistics depict that one out of four children will have tooth decay by the time
they join school since 24.7% of kids aged five years suffer from this illness (PHE, 2018).
Furthermore, tooth decay was the disease behind the high hospital admissions among for kids
between zero to nine years between 2012 and 2013. Also, in 2014 and 2015 more than 63, 000
kids were admitted for tooth extraction, signifying the importance of this illness to the
government through its ministry of public health and other stakeholders.
Improper teeth and mouth hygiene affects the children and their families for it is
expensive to remedy. The wellbeing of the family has affected as well as the education of these
children. Research on tooth extraction in the North West healthcare facilities depicts that 26% of
pupils missed from school because of dental pain and infection causing 38% of them experienced
sleepless nights. Of these days, an average of three days was boycotted as a result of dental
issues. The economy of the country is as well negatively impacted as these parents (41%) took
days off the job to take their children to hospitals (PHE, 2018).

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS IN HEALTH AND TOOTH DECAY IN THE UK 3
Among the risk factors for this disease are social disparities of income inequalities,
education, employment as well as nutrition whereby some children are fed in free sugar foods.
These social inequalities hint on the social factors of health as contributing elements to the
prevalence of this disease.
Epidemiology
The carries disease is at the local, national and international level influenced by the above
social factors of health. Another critical factor to highlight is age whereby statistics show that
this disease is prevented among children aged about five years. Some of the reasons for this
prevalence is lack of information about tooth hygiene since, poor cleaning methods and foods
mostly used by these children such as sugary foods which are enhancing factors for the
development of the disease. According to statistics, above 55% of children of about five years in
2015 in Blackburn Darwen were suffering from tooth decay (Shuttle, 2018). These high
percentile is attributed to lack or fewer visits to healthcare care centers for by the parents of these
children for a checkup to prevent this disease. Some parents are either ignorant or lack
knowledge on this disease prompting for mass sensitization initiative. For this reason, the
government of UK has come up with a sensitization program of “Starting well: Smile for life”
investing about 375k Euros targeting 4, 000 children in Lancashire and South Cumbria for the
following two years (Shuttle, 2018). Such a commitment by the government to this disease
highlights the importance of the illness and its effects.
In the global context, dental illness is prevalent among adults affecting a total of 2.4
million worldwide whereby as a result of unchecked cases in early life. Also, about 621 million
children are victims of this disease which frequently inflicts pain and can lender someone

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS IN HEALTH AND TOOTH DECAY IN THE UK 4
toothless (Kassebaum et al., 2015). Moreover, there is a worrying trend in prevalence for the
disease shifting from children to adults conspicuously at the age of 6, 25 and 70 years.
Nationally the burden of the disease is at 27% children of five years of age as of 2012.
These children have 3-4 teeth affected by tooth decay which includes both treated and untreated.
However, with the sensitization initiatives on the public, there is a general decline in the
prevalence of this disease from the national tally of 30.9% to 27.9%. Also, the number of
children with untreated decay has significantly reduced to 24.5% from 27.5% probably as a
result of the mass awareness on the disease. The children with sepsis in their mouths has
declined dramatically from 2.3% to 1.7% since 2008 with a general improvement on the children
without the condition from 69.1% to 72.1% since 2008 (PHE, 2013).
Tooth decay among children and social health factors
Various components join to impact the soundness of individuals at individual and
network or society levels. The determinants of the wellbeing of a people are dependent on the
prevailing conditions and the environment in which they flourish (Maslach & Jackson, 2013). To
an impressive degree, components, for instance, place of habitation, the status of the
environment, intrinsic properties, pay, and educational state, and the connections influence a
person's wellbeing (Selingman & Csikszentmikalyi, 2014). Regularly factors, for example,
access to and usage of social protection benefits have been known to the essential determinants
of the strength of a populace (Stoddart & Evans, 2017).
Nonetheless, as of late the impact of the variables as referenced above on wellbeing
status has been observed to be less as there is a creating array of relevant research that proposes
human wellbeing and life expectancy are not merely matters of characteristics and affinities