The Association Of Directors of Public Health (UK)’s Post

"A health creation system would make healthier lives a cross-society, cross- economy mission – and would focus intervention on the places where people really spend their time. While we might spend a few weeks or months of our lives in hospitals, we’ll spend tens of thousands of hours in work, thousands of hours in schools, and most of our time in our homes, communities and with friends or loved ones. It is in and through these spaces that a health creation system should be founded, which would support us through our lives – from ‘cradle to grave’, rather than just ‘at cradle’ and ‘at grave’." https://lnkd.in/eigWzCyS

North Ayrshire Council has applied to be part of a national programme that puts residents’ health under the microscope.   The Collaborating for Health Equity in Scotland (CHES) looks at ways to strengthen and accelerate the action underway to improve Scotland's health, increase wellbeing and reduce health inequities. Public Health Scotland and the University College London Institute of Health Equity (IHE) have partnered in the CHES, which will involve three places in Scotland.   Following engagement with partners from the Community Planning Partnership (CPP) and Integration Joint Board (IJB), the Council has submitted an expression of interest for North Ayrshire to be one of the three places involved.   The programme will look at:   ·        The most effective areas for intervention in Scotland to make meaningful progress in closing inequities in healthy life expectancy, which is the average number of years people can expect to live in good health, and   ·        How national and local organisations can work more effectively to close the gap between policy intent and impact in these areas.   Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eibPikVu

Creating healthier urban places - the only solution to the country's and government's health crisis At Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation we’re on a mission to help create a society where everyone has the chance to stay healthier for longer. Because the 19 years difference between the healthy lifetime of people on the highest and lowest incomes in our country is an appalling fact.   The new UK Health Minister, Wes Streeting MP, said earlier this week that we could expect “a shift from the services focused on treating sickness to a government focused on preventing illness in the first place”. That is the right vision: the only sustainable and affordable way to improve the nation’s health is to ensure the places we live, work, eat, breathe and play make us healthy not sick. Not treating more and more people with preventable illness. Only this will take the pressure off the NHS "front door" and help people to work and enjoy their lives.   In this new blog, our team explain how the government has an opportunity over the next five years to make cities healthier places for everyone that live in them: and 8 out of every 10 people in the UK live in urban areas. https://lnkd.in/gqN6MpwC

In a paradigm shift to advance health equity, the critical work of CHWs is being integrated into Californian state programs. CHWs are for all countries and should be recognized in all countries! https://lnkd.in/g5yejz5S

We support the new government’s commitment to tackling health inequalities, but to be effective they will need to make sure that the places we live, work and play are as healthy as they can be. This means working with businesses, local authorities, NGOs and crucially; people from the communities that experience the unfair burden of health inequity. The government has an opportunity over the next five years to make cities healthier places for everyone that lives in them. In this new blog, my team share their thoughts on what’s needed to create healthier, more equitable places:  https://lnkd.in/dReA6s2H

REVEALED: how we think about health in Britain is changing.   Britain is sick. Because of things like poor housing, low-paid, insecure work and lack of local, healthy, affordable food, where we live can cut our lives short by as much as 16 years.   But the way most of us usually think about health is that it’s of our own making. Health is seen as being about what we eat, whether we drink or smoke and exercise. The context of how our surroundings shape our health has been missing from view. New research from our Moving Mindsets project - funded by The Health Foundation and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) - reveals that is changing. More collective mindsets on health are emerging, and people are increasingly aware of how context shapes health as they see that things like low paid work and a lack of social supports are holding us back from health. The research also shows overwhelming public backing for government action on health - 72% of people supported a long-term whole government commitment to improving health. Three ways advocates and public health professionals can make the most of this moment to secure greater political action on health: #1 Position public health asks as for the national good #2 Continue to explain how society shapes health to reinforce this thinking #3 Be clear our government has a robust mandate for action to reduce health inequalities Read the full research and discover more tips: https://lnkd.in/gxn8stKk

“Whole-government action on health and tackling inequalities is needed to reduce the life expectancy gap that is cutting lives short across the UK, and it’s great to see public support for this. Our health is shaped by the world around us, from quality homes that are warm and safe, to stable jobs and neighbourhoods with green space and clean air. Investment in these essential building blocks of good health will help us to make health equal.” - Paul McDonald, our Chief Campaigns Officer. Because of things like income, air quality and housing, where you're born can cut your life short by up to 16 years. Read the full report on how health in the UK is changing below and let's work to #MakeHealthEqual

Do city leaders believe that prioritizing and funding health creates economic loss? We have seen that the exact opposite is true. A comprehensive report from 2022 looking at funding of a wide range of public health initiatives points to greater investment resulting in: ✅ Lower mortality rates ✅ Better mental health ✅ Higher birth weights ✅ Reduced health care costs overall In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2024 suggested that every $1 invested in public health yields up to $88 in improved health status and benefits to society. The Inland Empire is set to experience record growth - in fact most of the growth occurring in the state of California in the coming years will occur here. Now is the time to set the tone. Will that growth be an opportunity? It can be, if we put the right foundation in place now. Learn more about building healthy cities at our Institute for Healthy Cities Initiative luncheon on September 26. (See comments). #PublicHealth #HealthyCities #EconomicGrowth

Interesting and important early findings from FrameWorks UK Moving Mindsets project. As Tamsyn Hyatt sets out in this briefing, mindsets on health are changing - in ways progressives should take notice of. Health can trigger individualistic ways of thinking. People focus on individual will power and personal choices when asked to reason why people or groups get sick - quick to blame smokers, junk-food eaters, sofa-sitters for their ills. This is a problem for those of us campaigning on structural determinant of ill house e.g. bad housing, poor air quality, a crumbling NHS - and stands in the way of our messages getting heard. But Moving Mindsets finds, in focus groups and quant work, that this individualistic way of thinking about health is shifting and they are seeing new mindsets emerge. 1) People increasingly see individual and national health as linked. 'Health as a collective resource' is a new mindset that recognises that people need to be healthy for the country to be healthy. This focus group quote sums it up nicely: “[Health] feels like the sort of cornerstone of everything isn’t it. Good health. Everybody needs to be in good health to give back to the country.” 2) More of us recognise that society shapes health. This means people are increasingly seeing the way the way society impacts on mental and physical health. This creates an opportunity to connect the quality of homes, food, air with our health - and call on government to do something about them. 3) We see Government as responsible: there is a commonly-held assumption that government has a central role to play in taking care of people’s health. This mindset has caveats, but broadly people expect the government to invest in healthcare and see it as a priority for the country. The briefing is packed with insights and lessons that communicators can draw from the findings. Take a look. 

Great piece from FrameWorks UK setting our health in a wider context, and stressing the impact and importance of health inequalities. People with a learning disability die on average 20+ years younger than the wider public. This impacts us all, and if we are going to tackle this we need joined-up thinking across social care, housing, effective use of social security to reduce poverty, employment and public health, as well as the NHS improvements that will hopefully come out of the recent Lord Darzi review commissioned by Rt. Hon. Wes Streeting MP. Vital it is positioned in the broader way prescribed by FrameWorks Institute.