WILLEMSTAD – Curaçao residents are considerably less likely to visit a dentist than people in the Netherlands, with the difference particularly pronounced among men, according to new figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
The Enkuesta Sosial 2025 found that 49.4 percent of men in Curaçao had visited a dentist during the previous 12 months, compared with 80 percent of men in the Netherlands.
Among women, 55.9 percent in Curaçao had visited a dentist during the same period, compared with 84 percent in the Netherlands.
The figures reveal a gap of more than 30 percentage points between Curaçao and the Netherlands for men and more than 28 percentage points for women.
The difference is much smaller when it comes to general practitioners. Overall, 66 percent of respondents in Curaçao reported visiting a general practitioner during the previous 12 months, compared with 69.1 percent in the Netherlands.
Visits to medical specialists also show a smaller difference. Among Curaçao women, 45.8 percent reported specialist contact, slightly above the 45 percent recorded among women in the Netherlands. For men, however, the figure was 33.7 percent in Curaçao compared with 39 percent in the Netherlands.
The much larger difference in dental care comes against the backdrop of financial barriers identified elsewhere in the CBS study. The report found that dental care was the healthcare service residents most frequently said they needed but could not afford.
CBS also cautions that its measure of financial barriers is not identical to the Dutch measure. In the Netherlands, 23 percent of adults reported avoiding or postponing dental treatment because of cost, while the Curaçao survey asked whether people needed dental treatment but were unable to pay for it.
Despite those methodological differences, the figures point to a substantial divide in the frequency with which Curaçao residents receive dental care compared with residents of the Netherlands.