Public Health

Current Awareness

Source: KnowledgeShare

Evaluation of the Changing Futures programme.
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; 2024.

(The evaluation aims to understand the impact of the Changing Futures programme on people experiencing multiple disadvantage. It also aims to examine how changes at a wider system level affect the way services operate and are delivered. Changing Futures is playing a key role in supporting people to access services and supporting people by coordinating access to different services.)

Making Prepared Foods Healthier & More Sustainable: The Case for Regulating Ready-made Meals in the EU.
Fern; 2024.

(This study finds that a significant and increasing portion of food eaten in the EU comes in the form of ready-made meals (currently 17%, and rising rapidly), which are less healthy and sustainable than food consumed in other forms. Placing legal requirements on the content of these meals could thus significantly reduce the harmful health and environmental impacts of EU food consumption, without burdening consumers.)

1,000 voices not 1: a report highlighting differences in cancer care in the UK.
Bristol Myers Squibb; 2024.

(To form the foundations of the Cancer Equals campaign (which aims to understand and help address the many factors leading to delays to diagnosis and differences in experiences of cancer across the UK), Bristol Myers Squibb carried out quantitative and qualitative research in partnership with Shine Cancer Support. This research report highlights some of the challenges that people living with cancer are facing and the inequalities that exist in how cancer is experienced across the UK.)


Always at the Bottom of the Pile: The Homeless and Inclusion Health Barometer 2024.
Pathway & Crisis; 2024.

(This report from homelessness charities Pathway and Crisis reveals how the national crisis facing England’s health and housing systems leads to worsening health for people in inclusion health groups. Drawing on 85 pieces of published literature from the past two years, and a survey of frontline medical and health care professionals, the findings reveal how those who are most excluded in our society struggle to access health services due to inflexibility, discrimination and stigma.)

Sign up to KnowledgeShare to receive personalised research direct to your inbox:

Public Health

Current Awareness Updates

Reducing the spread of respiratory infections, including COVID-19, in the workplace UK Health Security Agency; April 14 2022

(Public health principles for reducing the spread of respiratory infections, including COVID-19, in the workplace.)

Out of Area Placements in Mental Health Services, January 2022 NHS Digital; April 14 2022

(Publication of adult acute mental health patients being treated outside their provider of usual treatment in January 2022. Statistics are presented nationally and at regional, sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) footprint, clinical commissioning group (CCG) and provider level.)

Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics , Performance January, Provisional February 2022 NHS Digital; April 14 2022

(This publication provides the most timely statistics available relating to NHS funded secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services in England. This information will be of use to people needing access to information quickly for operational decision making and other purposes. These statistics are derived from submissions made using version 4.1 of the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS))

Thunderstorm asthma and public health – looking back to move forward UK Health Security Agency; March 18 2022

(In June 2021, the UK Health Security Agency detected a potential episode of
thunderstorm asthma; an increase in people reporting asthma symptoms linked to thunderstorm activity. In this blog post they look at the interplay between the weather and our health and how they can use their scientific surveillance systems to inform future public health responses.)

Integrated health and care services for people experiencing homelessness NICE Talks

(In this episode of NICE Talks they discuss NICE’s recently published guideline on integrated health and social care services for people experiencing homelessness.

The guideline was developed in partnership with the Centre for Homelessness Impact and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The guideline outlines how people experiencing homelessness can access services tailored for their needs. It highlights that more effort and targeted approaches are often needed to ensure that people experiencing homelessness have access to the same standard of health and social care as the general population.)

Covid 19

Current awareness updates

COVID-19: letter to patients on end of shielding programme.
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA); 2021.
[Reference-only version of letter from the government to patients on the end of the shielding programme.]

COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2021.
[This guideline covers identifying, assessing and managing the long-term effects of COVID-19, often described as ‘long COVID’. On 11 November, NICE made new recommendations and updated existing recommendations on identification; planning care; multidisciplinary rehabilitation; follow up, monitoring and discharge; and service organisation. NICE also updated the list of common symptoms, emphasising that these may be different for children.]

COVID-19 booster vaccine programme for winter 2021 to 2022: JCVI statement, November 2021.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2021.
[This statement sets out further advice from JCVI on extension of the booster programme to revaccinate adults aged 40 to 49 years against COVID-19. The main aim of this booster vaccination programme is to reduce deaths, serious disease and hospitalisations from COVID-19 over the 2021 to 2022 winter period and through 2022.]

Why we think you should say yes to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group; 2021.
[An information leaflet about the COVID-19 vaccine where clinicians and faith leaders highlight the importance of having the vaccine. The leaflet has been translated into the following languages: Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Czech, Farsi, Kurdish Sorani, Polish, Punjabi, Romanian, Slovak, Tigrinya and Urdu. Audio versions of the leaflet are available for each of those languages.]

No one wants to see my baby: challenges to building back better for babies.
Parent-Infant Foundation; 2021.
[This report explores the continued impact of Covid-19 on babies. It consists of a survey of professionals, in-depth studies with 11 families and a review of the literature, conducted with partner organisations Home-Start and Best Beginnings. The report shows that many services across the UK are not operating as they were before the pandemic, and babies and their families are missing out as a result.]

Essential and Invisible: Filipino irregular migrants in the UK’s ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
Kanlungan Filipino Consortium; 2021.
[For many in the United Kingdom, it might feel as if the “crisis” of the COVID-19 pandemic is coming to an end. Yet for irregular migrants, the pandemic has become a protracted struggle to survive. This report is based on interviews with Filipino irregular migrants based in the UK conducted in Spring 2021, compared to the same interviewees’ responses in Spring 2020.]

Coronavirus: support for landlords and tenants.
House of Commons Library; 2021.
[This briefing explains measures during the coronavirus outbreak to help renting households retain their homes. It covers calls for more assistance to prevent evictions and homelessness.]

New Podcast

Sleeping rough during Covid-19 and beyond: a public health emergency?

Source: The King’s Fund

What can the NHS do to meet the health needs of people sleeping rough? What was the inside story of the Everyone In initiative during Covid-19? And will the government end rough sleeping by 2024? Helen McKenna sits down with Dame Louise Casey, recent Chair of the Prime Minister’s Rough Sleeping Taskforce, Dr Caroline Shulman, a GP working in inclusion health, and Paul Atherton (FRSA), who shares his lived experience of homelessness.

To listen to the podcast click on the image below.