IPH response to draft Sustainable Development Strategy 'Everyone's Involved'

The Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH) aims to improve health on the island of Ireland by working to combat health inequalities and influence public policies in favour of health.  IPH promotes cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in public health research, training and policy advice. Its key focus is on efforts to improve health equity. The work of IPH (www.publichealth.ie) includes health impact assessment, building and sharing evidence for public health development, developing Ireland and Northern Ireland’s population health observatory (INISPHO www.inispho.org ), and providing public health policy advice in areas such as health inequalities, obesity, fuel poverty and food poverty.   Health is influenced by a wide range of social determinants, including economic, environmental, social and biological factors. IPH has a key interest and significant experience in raising awareness and developing work to influence these wider social and environmental determinants in ways which improve health. Sustainable development and public health are inextricably linked, in ways which are described in section 3.  Sustainable development is essentially at the heart of healthy communities and individuals as well as a healthy environment and sustainable economic development   - all factors at the heart of public health.

Inequalities Monitoring Update Second Bulletin 2007 (PDF 1952 KB)

Despite some relative improvements, there is a continuing health gap between the most deprived areas and NI overall. This is most evident in the potential years of life lost, infant mortality rates, teenage births, standardised admission rates to hospitals and cancer incidence rates indicators. The suicide rate within deprived areas, although still considerably higher (almost 50% higher), is now closer to the overall NI rate. Despite the reduction in the inequality gap, there was a recent increase in the number of deaths attributed to suicide across all areas. The extent to which this increase in suicides actually indicates an increase in the problem or it is due to recording/reporting practices changing over time has not been established. Life expectancy has been increasing in recent years for both males and females in both deprived areas and NI overall and there is no evidence of a narrowing of the inequality gap. The gap between deprived areas and Northern Ireland was maintained for circulatory and respiratory standardised death rates. The gap between the proportion of the deprived population suffering from a mood or anxiety disorder and that in NI overall has also remained fairly steady. Deprived areas actually fared better than NI generally for relative hospital waiting times and ambulance response times (although this may be an urban issue). åÊ

Health system responses to financial pressures in Ireland: policy options in an international context

Given the scale of the challenge facing the health system for 2013 and subsequent years, the Department of Health invited the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies to prepare a report on the implications for the Irish health system of our current financial pressures. The Observatory is an international partnership hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The partnership includes three other international agencies (European Commission, the European Investment Bank, World Bank), several national and decentralized governments, including Ireland, and academic institutions. As an independent and neutral knowledge broker the Observatory's core mission is to inform policy-making and decision-making processes by providing tailored, timely and reliable evidence on health policy and health systems. Click here to download PDF 2.1mb

Healthy Ireland - A Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013 - 2025

Healthy Ireland is a new national framework for action to improve the health and wellbeing of our country over the coming generation. Based on international evidence, it outlines a new commitment to public health with a considerable emphasis on prevention, while at the same time advocating for stronger health systems. It provides for new arrangements to ensure effective co-operation between the health sector and other areas of Government and public services, concerned with social protection, children, business, food safety, education, housing, transport and the environment. It also invites the private and voluntary sector to participate through well-supported and mutually beneficial partnerships. It sets out four central goals and outlines actions under 6 thematic areas, in which all people and all parts of society can participate to achieve these goals. Click here to download PDF 4.72MB

Briefing 02: Mortality in children and young people in the East of England

The current trend in infant mortality in the East compared with the UK as a whole, the contribution of different causes to the total number of deaths, and PCT-specific information on 8 years of combined data.

East in Focus: Infants

An overview of infant health in the East of England. Includes: infant mortality - distribution by deprivation, geographical variation, inequality in social class; breastfeeding; perinatal mortality - effects of education ; causes of death in infancy; vital statistics - births and deaths in infancy.