e-cigarette use remains low among young people in Britain

A new report on e-cigarette use finds that regular vaping remains low among young people, and has plateaued among adults | Public Health England

Regular vaping among young people remains low in Britain and has plateaued among adults, an independent report led by researchers at King’s College London and commissioned by Public Health England (PHE) has found.

The report is the first in a new set of three, commissioned by PHE under the Government’s Tobacco Control Plan for England. It looks specifically at the use of e-cigarettes rather than health impacts, which will be the subject of a future report.

The findings show that while experimentation with e-cigarettes among young people has increased in recent years, regular use remains low. Only 1.7% of under-18s use e-cigarettes weekly or more, and the vast majority of those also smoke. Among young people who have never smoked, only 0.2% use e-cigarettes regularly.

Regular e-cigarette use among adults has plateaued over recent years, and remains largely confined to smokers and ex-smokers, with ‘quitting smoking’ the main motivation for adult vapers.

More detail at Public Health England

Full report:  Vaping in England: an evidence update February 2019

Safeguarding children and young people

Children’s Commissioner for England warns the same mistakes that led to child sexual exploitation failings are being repeated with gangs 

The Children’s Commissioner has published Keeping kids safe: improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation. This in-depth study looks at children who are members of gangs and how they can be kept safe. It makes a number of recommendations, including some for implementation within the NHS:

•  government needs to make child criminal exploitation a national priority, and lay out clear expectations about the role of all organisations working with children – including the police, schools, children’s services and NHS bodies.
• Joint inspections between Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and the police and probation inspectorates should be rolled out across England, starting with the areas with high gang violence who were unable to respond to the information request for this report.
• More emphasis on the early years within the Serious Violence Strategy, with the Department for Education setting a clear target and plan for reducing the number of children beginning school with very low levels of development, along with a national plan for improving special educational needs identification in the early years.
• More support from the NHS, including better mental health support for children at risk of gang membership and exclusion.
• An urgent commitment to what will replace the soon-to-expire Troubled Families programme, alongside a long-term family-based approach to supporting children at risk of gang involvement.
• Ensuring councils have enough resources to provide the youth and early help services required to meet the needs of children at risk.

It is accompanied by a technical report The characteristics of gang-associated children and young people  which provides information on the scale of gang associated children and young people identified by statutory services.

Full document: Keeping kids safe. Improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation

Early Years Revolution needed to improve support and services, finds Health and Social Care Committee

Commons Select Committee | February 2019| Early Years Revolution needed to improve support and services

The Government must kick-start an Early Years Revolution to improve support and services for children, parents and families, says the Health and Social Care Committee, in its report on the first 1000 days of life (from conception to the age of 2) (Source: Commons Select Committee). 

The Committee found significant variation in the way that local areas prioritise and support families in the first 1000 days; as well as significant variation in staffing numbers, skills and the level of contact with families. Local areas must be supported to cultivate a skilled workforce, with an enhanced awareness of child development and adversity, and enhanced capacity and capability of staff to build relationships with the children, parents and families they work with.

The Committee recommends that the Government use the 2019 Spending Review as an opportunity to initiate the next early years revolution with a secure, long-term investment in prevention and early intervention to support parents, children and families during this critical period (Commons Select Committee).

 Read the report summary

Read the conclusions and recommendations

Read the full report: First 1000 days of life 

News release from the Commons Select Committee

Social determinants of health

This briefing presents the main findings from research commissioned by the Health Foundation, and carried out by the FrameWorks Institute, analysing public understanding, expert opinion and media narrative around health in order to develop more effective approaches to communicating evidence | The Health Foundation

The Health Foundation is working with the FrameWorks Institute to develop a deeper appreciation of the ways in which people understand and think about health in order to develop more effective approaches to communicating evidence.

This briefing presents the main findings from research analysing public understanding, expert opinion and media narrative around health. It also presents findings from questions sponsored by the Health Foundation in the 2017 British Social Attitudes survey.

Four key challenges are identified that communicators must tackle to achieve wider public acceptance of the evidence on the social determinants of health.

The briefing concludes by reiterating that by building wider understanding of the social determinants beyond those working in the field, we can build support for the policies and programmes needed to reduce health inequalities and improve health.

Key points

• Despite extensive evidence for the impact of social determinants on people’s health, public discourse and policy action is limited in acknowledging the role that societal factors such as housing, education, welfare and work play in shaping people’s long-term health.
• There are many reasons for this, but one factor that merits greater attention is the way in which the evidence is communicated to and understood by the public.
• The FrameWorks Institute has identified a range of ‘cultural models’– common but implicit assumptions and patterns of thinking – that give deeper insight into how people think about what makes them healthy.
• Understanding which cultural models promote – or obscure – people’s awareness of the importance of social determinants is an important first step in developing effective ways of framing the evidence.

Full briefing: Reframing the conversation on the social determinants of health | The Health Foundation

Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework Evaluation

University of the West of England | February 2019| Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework Evaluation

Have you used or looked at the Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework?

The Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing at the University of the West of England are working on the evaluation of the Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework (PHSKF), a project funded by Public Health England (PHE). They are evaluating Public Health England’s redesigned 2016 PHSKF to determine its impact on the public health workforce and their employers and its utility for PHE.

Full details and link to the survey here 

 

 

[NICE Consultation] Alcohol: school-based interventions In development [GID-NG10030]

NICE | February 2019| Alcohol: school-based interventions In development [GID-NG10030]

NICE is holding a consultation for Alcohol: school-based interventions In development [GID-NG10030], the consultation is open until 22 March 2019 at 5pm. 

Draft guideline

Full details from NICE 

HIV: Yorkshire and Humber annual data spotlight

Public Health England | February 2019 |HIV: Yorkshire and Humber annual data spotlight

Public Health England have published Reports presenting annual epidemiological data for HIV in Yorkshire and Humber.

These reports summarise:

• trends in new diagnoses of HIV
• prevalence of diagnosed HIV across the PHE centre
• risk groups
• public health implications
• advice for stakeholders
• recommendations for the public

Annual Epidemiological Spotlight on HIV in Yorkshire and Humber 2017 data

Trends in survival after a diagnosis of heart failure in the United Kingdom 2000-2017: population based cohort study

Taylor, C. J. et al | 2019|Trends in survival after a diagnosis of heart failure in the United Kingdom 2000-2017: population based cohort study | BMJ | 364 |  doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l223

A study that  looked at over 50,000 patients aged 45 and over with a new diagnosis of heart failure using data from the period 2000 to 2017 linking this with inpatient data and ONS mortality data. Over the course of the study’s duration there were 30 906 deaths in the heart failure group over the study period. Heart failure was listed on the death certificate in 13 093 as the primary cause of death. The study’s author conclude that after a diagnosis of heart failure has shown only modest improvement in the 21st century and lags behind other serious conditions, such as cancer. 

Abstract

 

Objectives
To report reliable estimates of short term and long term survival rates for people with a diagnosis of heart failure and to assess trends over time by year of diagnosis, hospital admission, and socioeconomic group.

 

Design Population based cohort study.

 

Setting Primary care, United Kingdom.

 

Participants Primary care data for 55 959 patients aged 45 and over with a new diagnosis of heart failure and 278 679 age and sex matched controls in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2017 and linked to inpatient Hospital Episode Statistics and Office for National Statistics mortality data.

Main outcome measures Survival rates at one, five, and 10 years and cause of death for people with and without heart failure; and temporal trends in survival by year of diagnosis, hospital admission, and socioeconomic group.

Results Overall, one, five, and 10 year survival rates increased by 6.6%, and 6.4%, respectively. There were 30 906 deaths in the heart failure group over the study period. Heart failure was listed on the death certificate in 13 093 (42.4%) of these patients, and in 2237 (7.2%) it was the primary cause of death. Improvement in survival was greater for patients not requiring admission to hospital around the time of diagnosis. There was a deprivation gap in median survival of 2.4 years between people who were least deprived and those who were most deprived.

Conclusions Survival after a diagnosis of heart failure has shown only modest improvement in the 21st century and lags behind other serious conditions, such as cancer. New strategies to achieve timely diagnosis and treatment initiation in primary care for all socioeconomic groups should be a priority for future research and policy.

Read the full article in the BMJ Trends in survival after a diagnosis of heart failure in the United Kingdom 2000-2017: population based cohort study

See also:

Invest in GP services to improve heart failure survival

Health matters: preventing cardiovascular disease

Public Health England | February 2019 | Health matters: preventing cardiovascular disease

Too many people are still living with undetected and poorly managed atrial fibrillation (AF), high blood pressure (BP) and raised cholesterol. Working with partners, Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England have agreed ambitions which seek to address the A, B and C of secondary prevention and reduce the health inequalities associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) over the next 10 years.

Image source: gov.uk

We know that Canada took just over 10 years to reach its CVD ambitions, but is now the world leader for detection and optimal management of high BP. The CVDSLF believes England has the potential to do the same if we all work together to achieve these ambitions (Source: Public Health England).

 

Health matters: preventing cardiovascular disease

Related: Public Health England  High blood pressure quality improvement in Cheshire and Merseyside

Public Health England Blood pressure testing outside of general practice

In the news:

BBC News ‘Know your cholesterol like you know your Pin code’

NIHR-funded study will test if a healthier supermarket layout improves diet

NIHR | February 2019 |NIHR-funded study will test if a healthier supermarket layout improves diet

A new study will question if the layout of a supermarket encourages shoppers to make healthier choices when purchasing food items. The team of researchers from Southampton University are working with retailers Iceland Foods Ltd in what will be the largest international trial of its kind to determine whether the placement of healthy foods has an impact on customers’ decision to eat healthier. 
The WRAPPED study  is being led by Dr Christina Vogel, Senior Research Fellow in Public Health Nutrition, who has been awarded nearly £630,000 over the next three years through the NIHR’s Public Health Research (PHR) Programme.

The study will involve the 1,620 female shoppers aged 18-45 years completing a survey about their diet and that of their young children (under 6s) before any stores change their layout. All of the participants will already be Iceland customers and they will either shop at stores where the layout will change or stores where it will remain the same. The researchers will look for differences in food purchasing and eating patterns between the women shopping at stores with the healthier layout and those using the unchanged stores.
Dr Vogel said:

“With the publication of the government’s childhood obesity plan in June, the race is on to find innovative ways to curb childhood obesity and hit the government’s ambitious goal to halve childhood obesity by 2030.

“We’ll be focusing our research on women as they do most of the food shopping and because mothers’ diets are closely linked to their children’s food habits; also national statistics show that 50 per cent of women aged 25 to 34 years in England are overweight or obese.”

Read more about the study at NIHR

In the news:

Talking retail Study to test if healthier supermarket layout improves diet

Daily Mail Healthy foods to be placed near supermarket entrances as part of taxpayer-funded study aimed at seeing if sales go up