We work with partners and communities to improve population health and health inequalities by focusing on the social determinants of health.
Collecting and studying information about the health of our population.
Our intelligence team provide information for all teams within the directorate.
We are especially interested in the non medical factors that affect health such as where people live and work, how much money they have and education.
You can read our annual report and find out more about our Public Health Survey.
Working with NHS colleagues, local authorities and the Third Sector to plan and shape services.
Our Population Health teams work across the Lothians on a wide range of projects.
We focus on services that create the best possible start in life for children and young people and services that create healthy sustainable places.
The best possible start in life for children and young people
- Maternal Infant Nutrition
- Sexual Health Information for young people (Healthy Respect)
- The Child Health Commissioner
Child poverty can have a harmful impact on the health, wellbeing, education and life chances of children, young people and their families. Some families are at higher than average risk of poverty and require specific and targeted support.
The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 places a duty on local authorities and health boards to jointly prepare an annual report on the activity they have taken, and will take, to reduce child poverty in their local area through action on the three main drivers of poverty – income from employment, income from social security benefits and the cost of living.
You can read the local reports on the links below – some include information on wider poverty work as well as their work on child poverty.
- Edinburgh Child Poverty Report
- West Lothian Child Poverty Report
- Midlothian Child Poverty Report
- East Lothian Child Poverty Report
Healthy, sustainable places
- Working with health professionals, community planning partners, housing departments, town and transport planners and Health and Social Care Partnerships
- Supporting sustainable economic growth and working with community wealth building groups
- Develop collaborative strategies which address the social determinants of health, tackling poverty and inequality by taking a place and wellbeing approach.
- Reduce harm from tobacco by reducing smoking with a specific focus on women and children, implementing our tobacco control policy and increasing the number of people who successfully stop smoking. (Quit Your Way)
Ensuring NHS Lothian services embed equality and human rights.
Public Health and Health Policy host NHS Lothian’s Equality and Human Rights team.
Our Equality and Human Rights team supports the organisation to comply with our equality and human rights duties and take a best practice approach so that our work improves the health of everyone in Lothian.
We have six equality and human rights strategic priorities – each one helping us understand and act on the experiences and needs of people who work for us and use our services. You can read about them on our Equality and Human Rights pages.
