The study, carried out by public health doctors from the Health Protection Agency and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, also found that women are three times more likely than men to have a body piercing and the most popular piercing site is the navel.
Over ten thousand people (10,503) aged 16 and over took part in the survey. These are the first published estimates of the proportion of the English population with non earlobe piercings and the rate of complications after having a piercing.
Piercing is more common among women than men, with nearly half the women (46.2%) surveyed aged 16
