FOREWORD

The goal of public health is to improve the health and wellbeing of people through three broad approaches:

	Health improvement which focuses on the wider determinants of health and the promotion of healthy lifestyles;
	Health protection which tackles threats to health from communicable diseases and environmental hazards;
	Service development which seeks to ensure that effective services are designed and delivered to meet the needs of populations.

All these strategies are underpinned by health information.

The aim of this website is to provide an easily accessible source of information about public health in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board area.

Directors of Public Health have a statutory duty to report annually on the health of the population in their area. Moving to a web based Director of Public Health report should enable information to be updated more readily and make it more widely available to the many people who are interested in and working towards improvements in the health of our population.

Dr David Stewart
Director of Public Health
Eastern Health & Social Services Board
dstewart@ehssb.n-i.nhs.uk

Almost one fifth of the Northern Ireland workforce has few or no formal qualifications and 24% of the working age population have literacy or numeracy problems.
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Breastfeeding Mothers have:
- enhanced weight loss following pregnancy
- delayed return to fertility
- lower risk of cancer of the ovary and breast
- lower risk of post menopausal hip fracture
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It is estimated that at any one point in time as many as 1 in 6 people have been diagnosed with a condition such as depression or anxiety. Between 10% and 20% of teenagers will suffer from depression at some time.
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