Half of Eastern Kentucky Children Have Untreated Tooth Decay, Report Warns
Lexington Herald Leader
FRANKFORT – The oral health of Kentucky’s school children is worsening, even though more of them are covered by dental insurance today than 15 years ago.
A new report was presented Wednesday to the state’s legislature’s Interim Health and Welfare Committee, following on an earlier statewide study conducted in 2001. The report’s authors found that 41 percent of third- and sixth-graders surveyed by a dentist had at least one untreated cavity. In Eastern Kentucky, that figure rose to 53 percent, amounting to about 15,100 children in immediate need of a filling.