By Public Health England (2019)
This report, and associated documents, summarises the evidence for the effectiveness of universal approaches to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. The documents are intended for strategic and operational leads, working on children and young people’s mental health.
By House of Commons Health Committee (2018)
The government is expected to publish shortly a refreshed version of the childhood obesity plan first published in summer 2016. This report calls for an effective childhood obesity plan with a joined-up, whole systems approach and one that focuses particularly on tackling the ever-widening health inequality due to childhood obesity between the richest and poorest area.
By Local Government Association (2016)
Tackling mental illness in children should begin before they are born, at a time when expectant mothers can suffer mental health problems, this report suggests. It says that early interactions and experiences directly affect how a child’s brain develops and concludes it is vital that intervention is made at this critical stage to reduce the chances of mental illness developing in children.
Black, J.A (2015) British Journal of General Practice,
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Background Overweight children are at an increased risk of premature mortality and disease in adulthood. Parental perceptions and clinical definitions of child obesity differ, which may lessen the effectiveness of interventions to address obesity in the home setting. The extent to which parental and objective weight status cut-offs diverge has not been documented.
Aim To compare parental perceived and objectively derived assessment of underweight, healthy weight, and overweight in English children, and to identify sociodemographic characteristics that predict parental under- or overestimation of a child’s weight status.
Design and setting Cross-sectional questionnaire completed by parents linked with objective measurement of height and weight by school nurses, in English children from five regions aged 4–5 and 10–11 years old.
Method Parental derived cut-offs for under- and overweight were derived from a multinomial model of parental classification of their own child’s weight status against school nurse measured body mass index (BMI) centile.
Results Measured BMI centile was matched with parent classification of weight status in 2976 children. Parents become more likely to classify their children as underweight when they are at the 0.8th centile or below, and overweight at the 99.7th centile or above. Parents were more likely to underestimate a child’s weight if the child was black or South Asian, male, more deprived, or the child was older. These values differ greatly from the BMI centile cut-offs for underweight (2nd centile) and overweight (85th).
Conclusion Clinical and parental classifications of obesity are divergent at extremes of the weight spectrum
By NHS England (2015)
This guidance finds that increased preventative services, good quality, easily available information and advice, as well as integrated health and social care could have a significant impact on the numbers of children and adults suffering with continence issues and the severity of their health and social problems. It brings together the most up-to-date evidence based resources and research to support commissioners and providers of health services to enable them to make real and lasting changes to raise standards of care for continence. It encourages greater collaboration between health and social care, working in partnership with the third sector, as set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View.
By Fit for Sport (2015)
In 2014, Fit For Sport conducted a simple physical activity test to assess key indicators of health and physical literacy of primary age children in 80 schools across the UK. This report includes some of the key findings.
By Royal College of General Practitioners (2015)
Children make up more than a quarter of emergency department attendances in the UK and in England alone there has been a 28 per cent increase in admissions for children to hospital over the last ten years. Healthcare professionals are warning that unless there is an overhaul of unscheduled care services, there is a risk that growing demand will result in poorer outcomes for children. This set of standards says that in order to deal with these pressures, and to improve child health outcomes, not only do unscheduled care services need more investment but there also needs to be a shake-up of how services are designed, with more children being cared for outside the hospital, in the community and closer to their home.
By NICE (2015)
A summary of selected new evidence relevant to NICE public health guidance 17 ‘Promoting physical activity for children and young people’ (2009)
By Centre for Mental Health (2015)
This report makes the case for investing in children’s mental health services as it is excellent value for money and will bring a lifetime of benefits to young people, their families, communities and the economy as a whole. It also warns that to achieve the best value for money, children’s mental health services need to reach out to those who need them most and to be delivered to a high standard.
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By Department of Health (2015)
This factsheet, for health visiting providers and others involved in the roll-out of the ASQ-3™ tool, explains how the tool will be used to collect data for a public health outcome measure of child development at age 2.
Click here to view this factsheet