New Health Index will provide better local data for Northumberland

Using the national Health Index framework and data from the trust, Northumberland County Council, North Tyneside Council and other local NHS organisations, the local Health Index tool can provide population health information for each ‘small neighbourhood’ – around 1,500 people.

As well as the two councils, it has worked with the Office for National Statistics and national public health expert and chairman of the trust’s health inequalities programme board Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard.

Northumbria Healthcare chief executive Sir James Mackey said: “The development of the local Health Index is testament to the power of collaborative working.

“This information will allow health leaders, clinicians and other partners to have informed and real-time discussions about health.”

The Health Index is split into three categories – healthy people (health outcomes), healthy lives (health-related behaviours and personal circumstances) and healthy places (wider social, economic and environmental drivers of health).

These categories can then be broken down further into sub-categories to focus on topics such as mental health and economic and working conditions. The sub-categories consist of 56 specific indicators of health – including obesity, alcohol misuse and air pollution.

Liz Morgan, director of public health for Northumberland, said: “With data available at a neighbourhood level, this means that we can target our partnership efforts to reduce inequalities across our respective council areas.”