Important sources of routine data on the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents in the UK are listed below (please note this is a long page - you can use the links at the top of the content below to jump to the desired content).
These data are generated through legal requirements (e.g. statutory registration of births and deaths) or as an integral part of the delivery of key services (e.g. health care, education, child protection). These routine data complement information available through other sources, such as large scale surveys.
- Population – information on population estimates and projections
- Births
- Deaths
- Health care – information on various aspects of health care provision such as prescriptions, Accident & Emergency attendances, and hospital admissions
- Health protection/public health
- Education
- Child protection and looked after children
- Additional topic specific and comparative data
- Organisations providing access to a range of UK routine data at small area level
- Organisations providing access to international comparative data
Population – information on population estimates and projections
Births
Deaths
Health care – information on various aspects of health care provision such as prescriptions, Accident & Emergency attendances, and hospital admissions
Health protection/public health
The remit of national health protection/public health units across the UK varies. Some focus on communicable disease control whereas others have broader remits including surveillance of various aspects of population health. All produce some routine data of relevance to child and adolescent public health.
- Public Health England
- Public Health England maintains a data and knowledge gateway that provides access to all data and analysis tools from across PHE
- Public Health Wales
- Health Protection Scotland
- Northern Ireland Public Health Agency
Education
Child protection and looked after children
- England (Department for Education) - Child protection
- England (Department for Education) - Looked after children
- Wales (Welsh Government Health and Social Services Directorate)
- Scotland (Scottish Government Children and Families Directorate)
- Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Executive Department of Health, Social Services, and Public Safety) - Child protection
- Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Executive Department of Health, Social Services, and Public Safety) - Looked after children
Additional topic specific and comparative data
Public health observatories and similar organisations across the UK provide useful additional information on specific topics relevant to child and adolescent public health, often based at least in part on detailed analyses of routinely available data. The English public health observatories have recently been incorporated within Public Health England and renamed as ‘intelligence networks’. Sites with particular relevance to child and adolescent public health include:
- English Public Health Observatories/Intelligence Networks
- Public Health Wales Observatory - Includes Health of Children and Young People guides (comprehensive national and local reports on the health of children in Wales).
- Scottish Public Health Observatory - Includes Children and Young People guides (local area data relating to children and young people in Scotland).
- Ireland and Northern Ireland's Population Health Observatory
- Child and Maternal Health Intelligence Network - Includes various comparative profiles on aspects of child health across England (http://www.chimat.org.uk/profiles) and an interactive Data Dictionary listing useful sources of data on child and maternal health in England, the UK, and Europe (http://www.chimat.org.uk/directory)
- Obesity Intelligence Network
- Injury Observatory for Britain and Ireland
- Smoking in England (gateway to data on smoking and smoking cessation in England)
- Children and Young People’s Health Outcomes Framework (local area data relating to children and young people in England)
- British Isles Network of Congenital Anomaly Registers
National confidential enquiries relevant to the health of mothers and children in the UK provide detailed information on factors associated with death and serious ill health in these groups. Often these enquiries are based on/triggered by routine data, such as registration of a maternal or infant death. Relevant enquiries include:
- Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership Maternal, Newborn, and Infant Clinical Outcome Review Programme
- Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership Child Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health runs paediatric surveillance units that collect standardised data on children with relatively rare conditions from practicing paediatricians.
Organisations providing access to a range of UK routine data at small area level
Organisations providing access to international comparative data
- Child and Maternial Health Intelligence Network (provides a directory of data on maternal and child health in European countries)
- UK National Statistics Gateway (provides access to a range of routine data for each of the four UK nations)
- World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe (comparative health information for European countries)
- European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (comparative information on health systems for European countries)
- EuroPeristat (a pan-EU collaboration providing international comparative information on perinatal health)
- European Research Inventory for Child Health in Europe (RICHE) (a pan-European research collaboration providing collections of research outputs, grey literature, and statistics relevant to child health in Europe)
- Eurostat (comparative information on a range of topics for European countries)
- UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) (comparative information on the health and lives of children in all countries) - Childinfo.org
- UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) (comparative information on the health and lives of children in all countries) - Statistics and Monitoring
- World Health Organisation (comparative health information for all countries)
- World Bank (comparative information on a range of topics for all countries)
- Gapminder (a global health site providing user friendly graphics drawn from routine data on all countries)