e-Newsletter
Issue 4
January 2009

Welcome to the fourth ScotPHO e-Newsletter

In this e-Newsletter we feature some of the projects we've been working on over recent months and highlight other developments in public health intelligence in Scotland.

If you have any comments or questions about the e-Newsletter or the ScotPHO collaboration, please email us at scotpho@nhs.net.

If you have difficulty reading this e-Newsletter as an email, then please view it as a web page.

New on the ScotPHO website

Click on the headlines below for more details

New CHP health and wellbeing profiles for Scotland

These new profiles comprise 61 indicators of health and wider determinants of health. There are individual profile reports for 30 of the community health partnership (CHP) areas in Scotland. Profiles for the 10 CHP areas in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have been produced separately by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health. In addition to the individual CHP profile reports, we have produced a Scotland overview report (which includes data for NHS boards) and a full technical report. We have also published supporting Excel data files containing data for the 61 profile indicators, including time trends, for a range of geographies (Scotland, NHS boards, CHPs, intermediate geography zones and locally defined areas) to allow further analyses of the data. We also plan to make available later this year an interactive tool that will allow users to download spine charts, time trend and rank charts for a range of indicators and geographies.

The profiles are designed to:

  • Provide organisations and communities with up-to-date and locally-relevant public health intelligence.
  • Highlight health and social inequalities.
  • Show trends in key indicators.
  • Provide local information for targeting resources and priority-setting.
  • Develop knowledge of the complex nature of health and its determinants.

Healthy life expectancy

Healthy life expectancy is the length of time people can expect to live in 'good' health. This new website section provides extensive data on healthy life expectancy and life expectancy in Scotland and its NHS board areas, CHPs, intermediate geographies and locally defined areas, deprivation quintiles and deciles, and areas defined by the urban rural classification. Comparisons are drawn between Scotland and the UK and other Western European countries.

Young adult smokers in Scotland

This report provides an analysis of young adult (age 16-24) smokers, drawing mainly on the Scottish Household Survey. It also draws on a range of sources for particular populations with high smoking prevalence that are not covered by or likely to be very under-represented in the Scottish Household Survey. It considers the characteristics of young adult smokers - who they are, how/where they spend their time - and trends over time to help inform the development and targeting of practical responses to reduce smoking uptake in these transition years.

How much are people in Scotland really drinking?

This report assesses the extent to which Scotland’s routine national surveys reflect true drinking behaviour. Comparing survey estimates with sales data, it shows that survey underestimation of alcohol consumption has increased (due to larger and stronger drinks) and suggests that people in Scotland may be drinking twice as much as surveys have previously reported. It presents survey trends in drinking over the last decade for both adults and children and interprets them in light of their validity. It concludes with recommendations for the improvement of Scottish survey data on alcohol consumption so that they provide a more accurate picture of Scottish drinking.

ScotPHO website topic focus

Suicide is a leading cause of mortality in Scotland in those aged under 35 years. Suicide rates vary considerably across both NHS board and local authority areas, and by age, deprivation group and gender. In 2007 the suicide rate for males (all ages) was around three times that for females. In addition, suicide increased with increasing deprivation, with rates in the most deprived areas of Scotland double the Scottish average (see graph below). Based on three-year rolling averages, there has been an overall fall in suicide rates in Scotland between 2000-02 and 2005-07, particularly for males.

Chart showing SMRs for suicide by SIMD decile for Scotland, 2003-07

For further information on this topic, see our web pages.

Coming soon on the ScotPHO website

We hope to add the following resources to the ScotPHO website over the coming months, so please check our home page regularly to see what's new on the website.

Reports:
  • Are people in Scotland more active? Combined results from Scotland’s routine national surveys.
  • Multiple risk factors.
  • Population diversity and health improvement opportunities.
  • Scotland's mental health and its context: adults 2009.
Website sections:
  • Asthma.
  • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
  • Injuries (intentional and unintentional).
Other resources:
  • Health inequalities intervention tool.
  • Scotland and European Health for All Database update.

Other developments in public health intelligence in Scotland

Click on the headlines below for more details

Glasgow Centre for Population Health

The Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) was set up in April 2004 in response to Glasgow’s poor health record. The centre aims to contribute new evidence and insights to improve our understanding of the patterns and causes of Glasgow’s poor health record. It also aims to identify potential solutions, actions and interventions to achieve health improvement and reduce health inequalities. The centre has a number of work programmes and is keen to promote wider involvement in its work.

The ‘Observatory Function’ of the GCPH is involved in a range of projects relevant to public health intelligence. Recent publications include:

Mental health indicators for Scotland

NHS Health Scotland has analysed the available data for the national adult mental health indicators for Scotland. This first systematic assessment of the mental health and associated contextual factors of the adult population in Scotland will be published on the ScotPHO website in February 2009. This will comprise a report ("Scotland’s mental health and its context: adults 2009"), briefing paper and data file.

A 3-year programme of work to establish children and young people’s mental health indicators is underway with input from a recently established advisory group. A modification of the adult mental health indicators framework is being used as the draft working framework. Two projects are currently being progressed to inform the work. The first project is to validate the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) for use with children aged 13 to 15 and the second project is a literature review on children and young people’s views on the factors that influence their mental health.

Health Education Population Survey (HEPS): Update from 2007 survey

Using data from the Health Education Population Survey in 2007, this report presents an update on time trends in health-related knowledge, attitudes, motivations and behaviours in Scotland over the period 1996-2007. The report focuses on areas where there has been a change in 2007, or consolidation of an earlier change. The 2007 update is the last annual report from the survey in its original form. From 2008, the survey has been replaced with the Knowledge, Attitudes and Motivations (KAM) module in the Scottish Health Survey. Results from the 2008 KAM will be released later this year.

Scottish Public Health Network (ScotPHN)

Several ScotPHN projects are currently nearing completion and reports will be available in April or May 2009. These include:

  • A needs assessment of myalgic encephalopathy (ME) / chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) services.
  • A needs assessment of treatment and care services for people living with HIV.
  • The development of a mental health patient pathway for prisoners with anxiety and / or depression.

A needs assessment of type 2 diabetes has commenced recently.

ScotPHN is looking for proposals for additional projects to undertake in 2009. Projects should be on current or emerging public health issues, including specialist public health services, specialist health promotion services and health improvement services. If you would like to submit a proposal please contact Ann Conacher, ScotPHN Co-ordinator for further details (0141 354 2979 / scotphn@health.scot.nhs.uk).

Public Health Information Network for Scotland (PHINS) 2008 annual seminar

Around 300 delegates attended the seminar, which took place on Friday 5th September 2008 in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The seminar included a general update on health and wellbeing related information projects in Scotland and the presentation of new research in a number of public health related topic areas. Further information, including links to download the slides for some of the presentations, is available from the ScotPHO website by click on the above headline.

 Scottish Health Survey

The Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) has now completed its 2008 fieldwork. The overall response rate was somewhat lower than hoped but plans are in place to make up the shortfalls over the remaining course of the survey. The 2008 results should be published in September 2009. The questions in the 2009 module have now been finalised and are in the field.

The SHeS team recently conducted a dissemination scoping survey to see if previous and current dissemination efforts have been hitting the mark and to ask what people would like to see in the future. The main findings were:

  • Positive views of the SHeS website and email updates amongst users who were aware of them, but lower than expected awareness amongst users in general.
  • Users want to be able to access electronic, searchable and user-friendly versions of reports, results and other information about the survey.
  • Less interest in technical information than in results.
  • Relatively few users had analysed past SHeS data themselves, but about half would like training to analyse future data.
  • Users would like access to a simplified dataset of up-to-date data.

More detailed results of the user survey are available on request from the SHeS team at ScottishHealthSurvey@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics

From December 2008 the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS) website moved from quarterly to weekly updates ensuring the data on the site is as up-to-date as possible. The most recent update to the health information on SNS included information on the proportion of mothers aged under 20 and those aged 35 and over, low weight births, and smoking during pregnancy. The next health update is planned for the 26th February and will include the latest information on hospital admissions and childhood obesity.