Public Health Information News Issue 1 2011
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Public Health Information Service News Issue 1 2011 Public Health Information Service News Issue 1 2011 CONTENTS Updates and Publications ___________________________________________________ 3 Health Challenge Wales Update _____________________________________________ 13 Welsh Assembly Government Health Website Latest Information____________________ 15 Welsh Assembly Government Current Consultations _____________________________ 16 Public Health News Around Wales ___________________________________________ 18 Web Reports and Publications_______________________________________________ 27 Calls for abstracts, awards and courses _______________________________________ 37 Consumer and patients information ___________________________________________ 40 Conference feedback______________________________________________________ 42 Information and Library Services _____________________________________________ 43 Contact details on this page only to save paper and reduce production costs. Sarah Davies, Senior Library Assistant Health Promotion Library Freepost CF2429 Cardiff CF14 5GZ Telephone: 029 2068 1239 Fax: 029 2068 1381 Minicom: 029 2068 1357 Email: [email protected] Public Health Information News is available in Welsh, large print, on disk and Braille. If you want a copy in any of these formats or languages, or you have any other specific requirements please contact Sarah Davies. It is also available electronically on the web at www.wales.gov.uk/healthpromotionlibrary This issue of the newsletter is published on 31 March 2011 2 Public Health Information Service News Issue 1 2011 Welcome to the first issue of Public Health News, published in time for spring and hopefully some spring sunshine. We are continuing with our usual Remember, no item is too small to columns in the news, and based on include, and if you have any the positive responses we have queries about copy simply contact had to our ‘web events’ pages we the editor Sue Thomas at: will only make this information [email protected] available there from now on. Please send all contributions about And finally, if you know of someone events to us to our email address who always reads YOUR copy of at [email protected] public health news, just let them know that they can get their very If you haven’t had time to look at own, either by signing up to the the page then it is available at electronic version, or by asking us www.wales.gov.uk/healthpromotion to send them a print copy, or in library following the links to large print or bilingually. conferences and events. See the recent issues on the As usual we also want to thank newsletter pages of our web site at: everyone for their contributions to www.wales.gov.uk/healthpromotion the news – it is really good to have library these as we want to let others know what is happening in public health in Wales, and the news is one way of doing this. Updates and Publications Inequalities The Glasgow Effect ‘It’s not ‘just deprivation’: Why do equally deprived UK cities experience different health outcomes?’ Walsh D et al Public Health, 2010, 124: 487-495 In this issue of Public Health a number of papers are published on this topic, including a study by a group of UK public health academics, practitioners and health intelligence specialists on what they term ‘the Glasgow Effect’. The study compares the causes of death from people from Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool, which concludes that: “Something other than solely socio-economic disadvantage is at work in creating the poorer health for Glasgow people.” 3 Public Health Information Service News Issue 1 2011 The September issue also has an editorial ‘We need to talk about Kelvingrove’ as well as two open commentaries which deal with this topic. You can access these articles online at the journal’s website http://www.publichealthjrnl.com If you are not able to do this and want copies please let us know as we have a subscription to the journal. ______________________________________________________________ Radio 4 Programme The Glasgow Effect was the feature of a programme by Ian MacWhirter recently, and we have obtained a copy of the text of this from the programme editors for the library. This is currently on circulation, but will be available for loan to all members as soon as it is returned to us. Having listened to this half hour programme this is a very interesting and easily accessible overview of this topic, which is recommended to everyone interested in this topic. ______________________________________________________________ Julian Tudor Hart Lecture: December 2010 “Fighting disparities or creating health: have we got the balance right?” The fifth lecture in this series was presented to a packed audience in the Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University last December by Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Harry Burns. Dr Burns, who was Director of Public Health in Glasgow for ten years, with a research interest in health inequalities, presented his experiences of working in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and in particular his understanding of the severity of the complex, serious illness in the east end of Glasgow. He went on to describe the chain of biological events which link social adversity to poor health outcomes. Evidence from a wide range of studies shows the importance of our early experiences in setting our response to stress. Dr Burns further emphasised the importance of consistent nurturing in the early years so that children develop social and emotional intelligence. This development in the early years is crucial so that as adults they will be able to experience life events as structured and manageable. 4 Public Health Information Service News Issue 1 2011 In concluding he stated that ‘the action which is required if we seriously wish to improve health, is to deal with the adverse social conditions which provoke those biological consequences’. The lecture series was set up by PHA Cymru in honour of Dr Julian Tudor Hart to recognise his massive contribution to the cause of prevention and public health in general practice, and his role as patron to PHA Cymru. The aim of the series is to engage the academic community in Wales in the public health and wellbeing agenda to stimulate more scholarship, teaching and research in this area. The presentations from the lecture series can be found on the Cardiff Society of Institute Health and Ethics (CISHE) web site: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/cishe/ The Library also has copies of the slides from Dr Burns’ presentation. If you want to be sent this please let us know by email to [email protected] The next lecture is currently being planned for December 2011 – as soon as we have details about this we will feature it on our web events pages – so watch this space. Early booking recommended. ______________________________________________________________ Health and Human Rights: An International Journal “Social conditions of health: convergences and disjunctures”, 2010, 12 (2) This issue of the journal examines the relationship between human rights- based approaches, social medicine and social epidemiology. In the editorial the editors comment that they felt it was worthwhile to examine the convergences, and continuing divergences among these different approaches to promoting health as a matter of social justice. They further note that: “Despite the obvious synergies among these fields, conversations about the links between health and social justice seem to be occurring in parallel, with ensuing missed opportunities for enhancing progress.” Articles in this issue include the following: ‘The right to sutures: social epidemiology, human rights and social justice’ Venkatapuram S, Bell R and Marmot, M ‘The social determinants of health, health equity and human rights’ Chapman, A R 5 Public Health Information Service News Issue 1 2011 ‘Social conditions, health equity and human rights’ Braveman, P These are followed by a series of articles looking at health and human rights in practice. This journal is available as an open access one so all articles can be downloaded from the web at http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr ______________________________________________________________ American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2011, 40 (1) Suppl 1 A number of articles in this supplement consider the social determinants of health. In the articles from Professor Braveman, Professor of Family and Community Medicine Department, Center on Social Disparities in Health, San Francisco key considerations for researchers who study social determinants of health and policymakers whose decisions are based on research findings are examined. In the second of these she also notes that ‘while much remains to be learned about which strategies are most effective, current knowledge is sufficient to indicate promising directions’. Short commentaries on social determinants are also provided on: “Improving health: social determinants and personal choice” Marmot M and Bell R “Moving on upstream: the role of health departments in addressing socio- ecologic determinants of disease” Scutchfield F D and Howard A F “Strengthening the public health research agenda for social determinants of health” Boyce C A and Olster D H We are really grateful to Professor Braveman and her department for sending us copies of her articles as our copy of the journal is still on its way to us from the publishers. Limited electronic access to this supplement is available on the publishers’ web site at http://www.ajpm-online.net/supplements ______________________________________________________________