Public Health Outlook Framework – reflection from Irish in Britain policy officer
Public Health Outlook Framework – reflection from Irish in Britain policy officer
The new document from Public Health England suggests wide inequalities in health by ethnicity and by country of birth, but it also comes with the caveat that the overall picture is complex and difficult to summarise.
In it, the Irish in Britain are included, to a degree. For example, people born in Ireland and Northern Ireland (as well as Scotland) are identified as having significantly worse than average mortality rates at all ages and premature deaths under age 75. They are also recorded as worse for premature deaths from cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Dr Mary Tilki has referred to the ‘dreadful mortality’ recorded for those of Irish, Northern Irish, and Scottish birth, which is illustrated in Figure A4 of the document.
Figure A3 matches individual ethnicities against 18 determinants of health. The two Irish ethnicities included show comparatively low levels of determinant data: Travellers of Irish Heritage listed one determinant (Readiness for school); while White Irish listed five (Child excess weight 4–5 years old; Child excess weight 10–11 years old, Alcohol related hospital admission (males), Alcohol related hospital admission (females), Readiness for school).
The low level of the determinants of health attributed to the two Irish categories remind us of the ongoing struggle to improve the use of Irish data within British statistics. The Office for National Statistics have been working, for some time now, on administrative data – in order to bring that to a point whereby such data will be able to replace, in part or completely, the existing Census questionnaire. It would be very welcome if that work were also to have a positive impact in this and other relative areas.
Policy Officer – Sean Hutton