Health bulletin
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Injuries are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in childhood. Injuries at school account for up to 30% of accident and emergency department attendances in school age children in England and Wales. Routine school reports are a possible source of information on these injuries, but work in other countries indicates that schools under-report injuries to children, making it difficult to estimate incidence. ⋯ At this rate, the cost of hospital treatment for school accidents for Argyll and Clyde Health Board is estimated at Pounds 134,760 per year. Applied to the Scottish population, costs would be over Pounds 1.8 million per year. These figures supply the first UK estimates of health care costs of school accidents, and hence assist services in deciding the priority to accord school accident prevention.
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To quantify the association between dental decay in Scottish Schoolchildren & social deprivation as measured by the Carstairs Index from the 1991 census. ⋯ Tooth decay was confirmed as a disease associated with social deprivation in Scotland. The increasing polarisation of decay to socio-economically deprived groups of the population, suggests a 'whole population' approach such as water fluoridation would prevent tooth decay in these deprived groups most effectively. Nevertheless all evidence-based interventions should be used to try to narrow the "Dental Health Divide' by improving the dental health of deprived individuals.