Cyprus is among those EU countries with the lowest percentages of children under 16 living in a household as dependants that had unmet medical needs, according to Eurostat.
However, when it came to unmet medical needs regarding dental care, the relevant percentage in Cyprus was slightly higher than the EU average.
In 2021, 1.5% of children below 16 in households with children had unmet medical needs (3.6% in the EU), indicating an increase of 0.1% percentage points (pp) since the last report in 2017 (1.4%).
On the EU level, there was an increase of 2 pp compared to 2017 (1.6%).
The share of dependant children with unmet medical needs in Cyprus was higher (3.5%) for children living in households with one adult but slightly lower at 1.3% for households with two or more adults.
The same trends appear on an ΕU level, with 5.3% of children living in households with one adult having unmet medical needs.
It was also slightly lower for households with two or more adults than the overall share of dependant children, at 3.4%.
Among EU members, the highest shares of children with unmet medical needs were in Poland (7.3%) and Latvia (6.4%), followed by Hungary and Romania (both 4.7%) and Spain (4.6%).
In contrast, the lowest shares were reported in Austria (0.3%) and Luxembourg (0.4%), followed by Croatia (0.9%), Malta, Lithuania, and Cyprus (all with 1.5% each).
Dental care
In 2021, the situation for dental care was similar though slightly worse than the unmet medical needs in both Cyprus and the EU level.
Some 4.7% of children in Cyprus living in households with dependant children (4.4% in the EU) didn’t receive the dental care they needed.
This percentage marked an increase of 1.6 pp in Cyprus compared to 2017 (3.1%) and an increase of 1.8 pp in the EU (2.6%).
Looking at data for all EU countries, 11 registered a percentage of children with unmet dental care needs above the EU average, including Cyprus.
This percentage was higher in households with one adult, with 7.5% of these children in Cyprus (7.1% in the EU) not receiving the dental care they needed.
Meanwhile, 4.5% of the children living in households with two or more adults in Cyprus (4.0% in the EU) had unmet needs for dental care treatment.
Among the EU members, the highest shares of children with unmet needs for dental care were in Latvia (7.7%), followed by Spain (7.1%), Hungary (7.0%), Slovenia (6.8%), and Portugal (6.4%).
The lowest shares were registered in Luxembourg (0.6%), Croatia (0.8%), Sweden (1.1%), Austria and Italy (both with 1.2%).
