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  • Research on healthy teeth includes facts on tooth decay, gum disease and more.
  • Visiting a dentist regularly helps maintain healthy teeth.
  • The cost of dental care impacts on whether people can afford a dentist, whether they can afford insurance, and how much they spend on dentists.

Oral disease within different population groups can be indicated by the proportion of people within that group who have decayed, missing or filled teeth.

Depending on whether the teeth are deciduous (baby teeth) or permanent (adult teeth), either a dmft (for baby teeth), a DMFT (for adult teeth) or a dmft/DMFT (for both) score is used to measure numbers of decayed, missing or filled teeth.

The dmft and DMFT score can be a useful way to measure oral disease:

  • decayed (d or D)
  • missing (m or M)
  • filled (f or F)

For more information see Oral health and dental care in Australia: key facts and figures 2011

3 in 5

15 year olds had tooth decay in their permanent teeth
3 in 10 adults had untreated tooth decay

3 in 10

adults aged 25–44 had untreated tooth decay  

1 in 5

adults had a toothache in the last year

3 in 5

people aged 5 and older visited a dentist in the past year

Dental workforce

There were about 50 dentists, 6 dental therapists, 3 dental hygienists, 2 oral health therapists and 4 dental prosthetists per 100,000 people.  

About 1/2

of Australians aged 5 and older had some private dental cover