Dr Deborah Wiltshire, Senior Access and Support Officer at the UK Data Service discusses the effect of health policy on the nation’s health. Deborah works with data, used by researchers to inform policy, providing advice on dataset content and analysis, and gives face-to-face and online introductory training to students, academics and other researchers.
October marks the annual Stoptober campaign which aims to help people give up smoking. Encouraging people to give up smoking has long been an important focus of health policy in the UK, and asia rcs data research carried out using data available through the UK Data Service suggests that these policies and campaigns are having some success.
A report by Public Health England using data from the Annual Population Survey found that in 2015 500,000 people successfully gave up smoking, the highest recorded success rate. Smoking rates in England, the report states, is now at an all-time low at 16.9%.
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Research using the Scottish Health Survey found that smoking rates are also decreasing in Scotland, and suggests that part of the observed reduction in smoking may be due to the increased use in aids such as E-cigarettes.