By Public Health England (2018)
This resource is made up of briefings and practice examples to promote healthy weight for children, young people and families as part of a whole systems approach. The briefings help to make the case for taking action to reduce childhood obesity, give examples of actions that can be taken, and provide key documents that form the evidence base and other useful resources. Practice examples are also given to illustrate what local areas are doing.
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 NICE (2018)
This guideline covers how to improve the physical environment to encourage and support physical activity. The aim is to increase the general population’s physical activity levels. The recommendations in this guideline should be read alongside NICE’s guideline on physical activity: walking and cycling.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
•strategies, policies and plans to increase physical activity in the local environment
•active travel
•public open spaces
•buildings
•schools
By Royal Society for Public Health (19th May 2017)
The report includes a league table of social media platforms according to their impact on young people’s mental health. YouTube tops the table as the most positive with Instagram and Snapchat coming out as the most detrimental to young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
By Public Health England (2017)
PHE commissioned The Children’s Society to undertake scoping research, to understand some of the opportunities and challenges currently facing those now responsible for commissioning and delivering young people’s specialist substance misuse services and to outline some critical good practice principles. Four main commissioning principles have been developed for the commissioning and provision of specialist substance misuse provision for young people, based on the findings, research and evidence-based guidelines.
By Public Health England (2016)
Public Health England and Unicef UK have developed guidance to support the commissioning of evidence-based interventions to improve breastfeeding rates across England. The toolkit consists of three parts: infographics which highlight the key issues; good practice guidance for commissioners; and guidance on effective data collection, monitoring and reporting.
By Local Government Association (2016)
This report contains seven case studies to illustrate how the use of planning powers could be utilised as part of public health policy locally. It highlights the balance to strike between supporting growth of local businesses and promoting healthier choices and options for the population.
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
Marufu, T.C et al (2015) BMC Public Health, 15: 239
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Smoking in pregnancy is known to be associated with a range of adverse pregnancy outcomes, yet there is a high prevalence of smoking among pregnant women in many countries, and it remains a major public health concern. We have conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to provide contemporary estimates of the association between maternal smoking in pregnancy and the risk of stillbirth.
We searched four databases namely MEDLINE, EMBASE, Psych Info and Web of Science for all relevant original studies published until 31st December 2012. We included observational studies that measured the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and the risk of stillbirth.
1766 studies were screened for title analysis, of which 34 papers (21 cohorts, 8 case controls and 5 cross sectional studies) met the inclusion criteria. In meta-analysis smoking during pregnancy was significantly associated with a 47% increase in the odds of stillbirth (OR 1.47, 95% CI 1.37, 1.57, p < 0.0001). In subgroup analysis, smoking 1-9 cig/day and ≥10 cig/day was associated with an 9% and 52% increase in the odds of stillbirth respectively. Subsequently, studies defining stillbirth at ≥ 20 weeks demonstrated a 43% increase in odds for smoking mothers compared to mothers who do not smoke, (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.32, 1.54, p < 0.0001), whereas studies with stillbirth defined at ≥ 24 weeks and ≥ 28 weeks showed 58% and 33% increase in the odds of stillbirth respectively.
Our review confirms a dose-response effect of maternal smoking in pregnancy on risk of stillbirth. To minimise the risk of stillbirth, reducing current smoking prevalence in pregnancy should continue to be a key public health high priority.
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.