Website overview

Health is not easy to define. One fairly standard definition, from the World Health Organisation is as follows:

'Health is not just the absence of disease, but complete physical, psychological and social well-being'

This page aims to provide an overview of factors relating to health in this broad sense; and in doing so describe the structure of the Scottish Public Health Observatory website.

Individual and therefore population health relates to both individual behaviour and individual biology.

Behaviour may be the most obvious determinant of health, and is often considered a modifiable factor. Diet and nutrition, physical activity, sexual activity, and the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs are all behaviours which can influence health.

Biological factors often require clinical assessment for their identification and those linked to health can be termed clinical risk factors. These include high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity.

It is clear that behaviour and individual physiology are themselves influenced by the physical and social environment, and ScotPHO is committed to taking a broad approach to the determinants of health. Life circumstances are the broad social and physical factors that influence health. They include the physical environment and environmental justice; the social environment including crime and deprivation; other environmental factors that influence community wellbeing; and influences that act over the lifecourse, such as education and income.

Populations are not homogeneous, and some population groups such as minority ethnic groups may have different health experiences.

Comparisons between groups may shed light on the determinants of health and highlight inequalities. Comparative health is examined in a section containing: (including an Interactive profiler) and constituency profiles; international comparisons (including the Scotland and European Health for All (HfA) Database and international mortality comparisons);a sub-section focused on health inequalities.

Populations are further examined in a section on population dynamics that includes information on deaths, healthy life expectancy, migration and population estimates.

A section on health, wellbeing and disease describes the health status of the Scottish population. We have focussed on conditions that account for a major proportion of the burden of disease in Scotland e.g. CHD, stroke, cancer and diabetes, but also cover other key health issues that cause concern e.g. suicide.

We include several sections relevant to communicable diseases: infections and hepatitis C, and the related area of immunisation. We have also included conditions that have important impacts on population health, but where it may be difficult to find information, or where there is a need to highlight significant information gaps. These include allergic conditions, disability, epilepsy, mental health, oral health and multiple sclerosis.

Finally, there is a resources section that includes (as well as this overview of the website): coming soon, a page which provides information on new website topics that are in development; information on the Public Health Information Network for Scotland - PHINS; news alerts pages, providing links to public health relevant articles appearing each week in the media;  and, key links and key data sources for public health relevant information in Scotland.