Posts about the work of the Health and Wellbeing directorate
We don’t think homelessness will happen to us, our family or friends. People living on the street didn’t think it would happen to them. We don’t plan for homelessness. It often results from a combination of events such as relationship …
For nearly 20 years England has been doing great work to tackle the harms caused by smoking. Cigarette advertising is banned, the age of sale for tobacco has been increased to 18 and enclosed public places have been smokefree since …
Health is an incredibly personal matter. So when thinking about whether to go to the doctor, have a check-up or take up an offer of screening, people should know exactly what is involved to enable them to make a choice …
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), part of Public Health England, is recognised worldwide as a best practice model for screening policy and implementation. We look to emerging science to inform our recommendations and while these recommendations (both for …
Conversations about public health may have flowed over coffee yesterday (16 Sep), but they also took place online. On Twitter alone more than 1000 people got involved, Tweeting over 4000 times using the #PHE2014 hashtag. This blog provides a brief snapshot …
It helps to have a good sense of humour when things are tough. Anyone who has quit smoking, or knows someone who has, will know that quitting counts as a tough time. Friends and colleagues who have quit tell me …
In our last blog post we asked for examples of good data visualisations and two of note were Cancer Research UK's "The causes of cancer you can control" and "Cancer, anyone?" on Visual.ly. Interestingly, both of these were cancer related – …
If you are reading this blog on a smartphone you are not alone. 62% of UK adults have one, and this is increasing significantly each year. About a quarter of Public Health Matters’ readership access this site from a smartphone …
Monday was World Hepatitis Day, the annual awareness raising day coordinated by the World Hepatitis Alliance. Over 170 organisations who work in the field of viral hepatitis, representing every region of the world are involved, and our own Dr. Helen Harris …
When an older person falls, it can have devastating consequences. Multiplied across the population, it’s a major public health issue. A third of people over 65, and half of people over 80, fall at least once a year. Falls are …
