The health chief’s report was based on data from 2024. She said the rates of relative poverty had not improved since 2010.
Davies said about half of all children in the NHS Highland area lived in the most “access-deprived” areas of Scotland.
According to her report, the rate of low birth weight babies in the health board region’s most deprived areas was more than five times that of the least deprived.
Tooth decay in five-year-olds in the most deprived communities stood at 42.7%, compared with 15.4% in the least deprived.
The report also said childhood vaccination coverage had declined since 2020.
Davies said: “Our region is a beautiful place to grow up, and the vast majority of our children thrive here.
“However, the sheer geographic scale of our region means that for families living in remote and rural communities, simply reaching services can take considerable time, cost and effort.”
She added: “These are the daily realities of children’s lives, and closing the current poverty gap that affects one in five of our children across Highland is a responsibility we share across the whole system – health, local government, communities and beyond.”
