childhood iq predicts age38 oral disease experience and serviceuse objectives given that people with higher intelligence have been shown to live longer enjoy better health and have more favourable health behaviours we investigated the association between childhood iq and a range of important dental health and serviceuse indicators at age 38methods longstanding prospective study of a complete birth cohort with childhood iq assessed at ages 7 9 11 and 13 years used to allocate participants n 818 to one of four ordinal categories of childhood iqresults there were distinct and consistent gradients by childhood iq in almost all of the dental caries experience measures with the exception of filled teeth whereby each was most severe in the lowest child iq category and least severe in the highest the exception was the mean ft score for which there was no discernible gradient indicators of selfcare and periodontal disease experience showed similar gradients and multivariate modelling using the continuous iq score confirmed the observed patternsconclusions childhood cognitive function is a key determinant of oral health and dental serviceuse by midlife with those of lower cognitive capacity as children likely to have poorer oral health less favourable oral healthrelated beliefs and more detrimental selfcare and dental visiting practices by age 38 there is a need to shape dental clinical services and public health interventions so that people with the poorest cognitive function do not continue to be disadvantaged