Dental health care

The county municipalities are responsible for the public dental health service and must ensure that dental health services are available to residents of the counties, either through the county municipality's own employees or through private practicing dentists who have an agreement with the county municipality.

Prioritized groups: Prioritized groups are persons who belong to one of the groups entitled to free dental health services according to the Dental Health Services Act.

• Group A consists of children and youth between 1 and 18 years old.
• Group B consists of all persons over 18 years old with mental developmental disabilities who do not live in institutions or receive home care.
• Group C1 consists of the elderly, long-term sick, and disabled persons living in institutions. This also applies to persons over 18 years old with mental developmental disabilities living in institutions. The elderly, long-term sick, or disabled persons must have been in the institution continuously for 3 months or more.
• Group C2 consists of the elderly, long-term sick, and disabled persons receiving home care. This also applies to persons over 18 years old with mental developmental disabilities receiving home care.
• Group D consists of all young people aged 19-20, except those with mental developmental disabilities.
• Group E consists of other groups that the county municipality has decided to prioritize. Examples of this are inmates in prison and persons within the field of substance abuse treatment.
• Group F consists of the rest of the adult population (not belonging to groups A-E), who pay for examinations and treatments in the public dental health service.

"Under supervision" in the public dental health care: The term "under supervision" in the public dental health service refers to patients who belong to one of the prioritized groups and are under the care of the public dental health service. Being "under supervision" means that persons have either undergone dental health examination by a dentist or dental hygienist, received dental treatment, received training in preventive measures, or have been offered follow-up. Different recall intervals result in not all persons who are "under supervision" actually being examined/treated in the reporting year.

dmft/DMFT (caries prevalence): DMFT (Decayed, Missing, Filled Teeth) is a measure of the sum of the number of teeth that have or have had a need for treatment and have been lost due to disease. D refers to the number of decayed teeth, which means the number of teeth that require reparative treatment at the time of examination due to caries. M refers to the number of missing (extracted) teeth due to disease, while F refers to the number of teeth that have been previously treated due to caries, often referred to as the number of teeth with caries experience. DMFT (big letters) refers to permanent teeth, while dmft (small letters) refers to deciduous teeth.

Institution: The term "institution" refers to hospitals, nursing homes, retirement homes, and similar facilities that have their budget and accounts approved by a public authority, receive operational subsidies from a public authority, or are included in a municipal or county municipal health and social plan. Psychiatric departments at hospitals, psychiatric nursing homes, and district psychiatric centers fall under this category. However, this does not include "care homes" or other residences used by municipalities for care and support purposes.

Full-time Equivalent (FTE): FTE = position percentage / 100, so, for example, a 50 percent position is considered half an FTE. Only agreed-upon working hours should be recorded. Overtime should not be included. This means that only agreed-upon hours, not actual hours worked, are recorded.

Employment: Employed persons are defined as persons who performed income-generating work for at least one hour of duration, as well as persons who have such work but are temporarily absent due to illness, vacation, paid leave, or similar reasons. Employment can be either as an employee or as a self-employed person. For self-employed persons, the registry basis is determined by the number of self-employed persons in Statistics Norway's labor force surveys, while which persons these are is partially determined based on whether they have employees with an active employment relationship and partially based on income data from the previous year.

Register-based employment statistics: The data source for register-based employment statistics is derived from information provided by the A-ordning. The A-ordning is a coordinated reporting system for wage and employment information to the Norwegian Tax Administration, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), and Statistics Norway (Statistisk sentralbyrå or SSB), regulated by the A-opplysningsloven (A-Reporting Act). Read more about this under "Data Sources" and "Data Collection". Statistics regarding dental health personnel in both the public and private dental health services are obtained from SSB's register-based employment statistics. Full-time equivalent (FTE) figures at the municipality or county level do not account for potential cross-municipal or cross-county purchases and sales. It also does not account for inter-municipal or inter-county collaborations. In cases where multiple municipalities or counties engage in inter-municipal or inter-county collaborations involving different personnel, the FTE figures will only be registered under the hosting municipality or county. For more information on register-based employment statistics, refer to the statistics for health and social personnel.

The number of municipalities and counties has changed over time. As of 2020, there are 357 municipalities and 11 counties. The most recent updated municipal and county divisions are from 2020:

Here you will find current and older municipal divisions.

Here you will find current and older county divisions.