Health matters: a new resource to aid local public health professionals
Smoking and quitting in England is the first of a planned series that will help make the case for effective public health interventions.
Health matters, launched today (15 September 2015) at PHE’s annual conference in Warwick, is a new resource for public health professionals. It is designed to support commissioning and delivering services across local areas.
Health matters: smoking and quitting in England is the first of a planned series of resources. Future editions will include other aspects of the 7 PHE priorities as set out in ‘From evidence into Action’. These include: tobacco, obesity, alcohol, antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis, early years and dementia, with some editions looking at other areas of PHE’s mandated functions.
The resource will bring together in one easily accessible package local and national level data, policy and programme expertise, as well as campaigning and social marketing resources – all presented in an easy-to-use, engaging format, that will help make the case for effective public health interventions.
One of PHE’s ambitions is to see a tobacco-free generation by 2025. The pilot Health matters looks at tobacco with a focus on smoking cessation. Despite a continuing decline in smoking rates, nearly 1 in 5 adults still smoke and around 90,000 11 to 15 year olds are regular smokers.
This resource provides the best available evidence on what we know about smoking and what works to help people stop smoking.
PHE Chief Executive Duncan Selbie, said:
Health matters is part of our mission to provide user-friendly advice and guidance and, in particular, on what works. This is the first in the series and we hope it will prove helpful to practitioners and policy makers in helping people to quit smoking.
The resource has been widely shared and tested, with stakeholders providing invaluable feedback
Christine Mead, Behaviour Change Commissioner, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea said:
I found Health matters a really useful resource, particularly the presentation and the reference guide. I can use the content easily and directly with different teams, departments and services, and it’s also very insightful for the development of our strategy work.
Dr Andy McEwen, Executive Director of the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training said:
Health matters but occasionally we need to remind ourselves of why it matters. The case still has to be made for commissioning effective stop smoking services and Health matters is a useful, cutting edge resource that helps the national message be delivered at a local level.
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Background
Public Health England exists to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities. It does this through world-class science, knowledge and intelligence, advocacy, partnerships and the delivery of specialist public health services. PHE is an operationally autonomous executive agency of the Department of Health. Website: www.gov.uk/phe. Twitter: @PHE_uk, Facebook: www.facebook.com/PublicHealthEngland
Health matters is supported and links to a wide range of content, some released today and further content being published throughout the coming month across a variety of channels.