Director of Public Health Report 2015

The seventh Director of Public Health (DPH) Annual Report, launched on 8 June 2016, focuses on demonstrating the economic worth of public health interventions.

A healthy population and a healthy economy go together. By detecting disease early and tackling primary risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity and obesity, public health interventions can help mitigate the huge cost burden associated with chronic diseases in the future. They not only help to prolong life, but also help people to lead happier, healthier lives and thereby create a population that can contribute to growing the local economy.

The report examines a number of interventions and programmes that are currently being funded by the Public Health Agency across each of the three public health domains - health improvement, service development/screening and health protection - and demonstrates their economic worth in order to set out the case for a preventive public health approach.

On page 36, the report also lists core tables for 2014 relating to key statistical data, including population, birth and death rates, mortality by cause, life expectancy, immunisation and screening. The PDF of the core tables is available here.