Guernsey health profile released

Dr Bridgman said the profile identified some "major areas of challenge"

A health profile for Guernsey has been published for the first time by the island's Health and Social Services Department.

Dr Stephen Bridgman, director of public health, said it provided "a snapshot of facts" that enabled "potential areas for improvement to be highlighted".

The profile looks at 34 indicators from 2006 to 2008.

Dr Bridgman said there could have been changes since 2008 but it was important to have accurate data to track changes.

Dr Bridgman said <link> <caption>the profile</caption> <url href="http://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=74886&p=0" platform="highweb"/> </link> showed an improvement in the life expectancy of islanders compared with figures for 1995-1997, and that the prevalence of smoking had halved over the last 40 years.

He said there were also "major areas of challenge" including disappointing breast feeding rates, large variations in preventable tooth decay in children, high death rates from lung diseases and a large amount of preventable cancers and cardiovascular disease.

Jenny Cataroche, public health analyst, said: "Health profiles are produced by many countries and regional authorities as a way of improving public access to health-related information.

"The profile provides a position statement for islanders about various aspects of population health, which can be monitored for changes over time."

The department said the profile was backdated to 2008 to avoid having to merge data from an old IT system and a new one.

It said it planned to publish an updated profile, covering the years 2010-2012, next year.