Public Health Wales

Name:

Malcolm Ward

Title:

Public Health Networks Manager

Email:

malcolm.ward2@wales.nhs.uk

Telephone:

+44 29 20 22 77 44

+44 29 20 82 76 28

Fax:

+44 29 20 22 67 49

Website:

http://www.publichealthwales.org/

Address:

Public Health Wales
14 Cathedral Road
GB-Cardiff CF11 9 LJ

Country:

Wales

Profile

Public Health Wales was established as an NHS Trust on 1 October 2009.

Public Health Wales has four statutory functions:

To provide and manage a range of public health, health protection, healthcare improvement, health advisory, child protection and microbiological laboratory services and services relating to the surveillance, prevention and control of communicable diseases;
To develop and maintain arrangements for making information about matters related to the protection and improvement of health in Wales available to the public; to undertake and commission research into such matters and to contribute to the provision and development of training in such matters;
To undertake the systematic collection, analysis and dissemination of information about the health of the people of Wales in particular including cancer incidence, mortality and survival; and prevalence of congenital anomalies; and
To provide, manage, monitor, evaluate and conduct research into screening of health conditions and screening of health related matters.

Health in Country

Wales is not a uniform place. There are high density urban areas of concentrated housing, and rural areas containing mostly farms and villages. As these areas differ, so does the health of the people who live in them. There are parts of the country where more people suffer from coronary heart disease, cancers and respiratory disease. There are also areas that have low levels of obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking. The important overall picture is that people in some areas are in generally poorer health which is related to a wide range of factors, and that the gap between the unhealthier and the healthier areas appears to be widening.

If the health of the people of Wales is to improve, then we need to learn lessons from our neighbours and empower communities to take responsibility for their own health. As such Public Health Wales welcomes feedback around how best to engage and inform the public about general health issues.

The Public Health Wales Observatory produced a report outlining Community Health Profiles around Wales.

We have mapped health inequalities against each Health Board area in order to gain a greater insight into local inequalities of health. Indicators of health include mortality rates, physical and mental health scores, unemployment and obesity amongst
many others.

Findings show that there are many differences between the 7 Health Boards and that Wales in general has a worse health profile than England.