E-Petition

The Petition of residents of the State of Queensland draws to the attention of the House that in 2024 the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) ran an article showing disadvantaged Queenslanders are most at risk of developing dental caries in areas with unfluoridated water.

The AMJ said "Their research found a strong association between socio-economic status and access to fluoridated water, with 79.4% of the Queensland population (4 050 168 people) having access to fluoridated water.

It also found Queenslanders living in lower socio-economic status areas have less access fluoridated water, putting them at greater risk of dental decay (known as dental caries)."

Those living in the socio-economically advanced areas of South East Queensland and Townsville have less problems with dental caries than those in the unflouridated parts of the state. 

Queensland Department of Health says on its website " Water fluoridation is the most efficient and well established method for reducing dental caries in a community." 

The Queensland Department of Health doesn't seem to have recently done research into the incidence of dental caries in fluoridated water areas compared to unfluoridated water areas.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to have the Minister for Health conduct research into of the incidence of dental caries in fluoridated water areas vs unfluoridated water areas and table the research in Parliament.