Children's Tooth Decay in 5-Year-Olds Across UK Local Authorities

Mean number of decayed, missing, or filled teeth per child among 5-year-olds in the UK. Data was originally collected at the Primary Care Trust (PCT) level and apportioned to Local Authorities, a process noted to be approximate where PCT boundaries do not align. The dataset is provided by the Greater London Authority and was last updated on 2026-06-24.

Use Cases

• Analyze regional disparities in children's dental health based on mean tooth decay metrics.
• Model the relationship between local authority characteristics and early childhood tooth decay rates.
• Monitor public health intervention effectiveness for children's oral health using longitudinal data.
• Create geospatial visualizations of dental health outcomes for 5-year-olds across the UK.

Strengths

• Data provides a specific health metric (mean number of decayed, missing, or filled teeth) for a defined age group (5-year-olds).
• Dataset includes a note on data provenance, explaining the apportionment process from PCT to Local Authority level.
• Last update timestamp (2026-06-24 21:09:53.458901) is explicitly provided.

Limitations

• Data is missing for some areas, specifically noted for Greenwich and Bexley in London.
• The apportionment of data from PCTs to Local Authorities is described as approximate, which may affect accuracy.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Greater London Authority, sourced from uk_data platform.

Collection Method

Data was originally available at Primary Care Trust (PCT) level and apportioned to Local Authorities.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-24 21:09:53.458901; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom, specifically Local Authorities (with noted gaps in London).