Public health annual report

Public Health is the term given to the work we do to improve people's health, improve health services, reduce inequalities in health, prevent illness and disease,; and improve life expectancy of our residents.  

Our work includes promoting healthy lifestyles, identifying and targeting the greatest health needs of our communities, commissioning evidence-based services and interventions and detecting, preventing and responding to infectious diseases. 

Annual Report of the Director of Public Health 

The Director of Public Health Annual Report describes how we work together collectively to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities. It highlights the different experiences of health and illness across the county and the key challenges we face.

Speaking on the publication of the 2024 Annual Report the County Durham Director or Public Health, Amanda Healy said:

"This year's report 'Unfair and avoidable; Looking ahead to health in 2040' has a focus on the future health of County Durham residents. Using the work of the Health Foundation, the report highlights the potential increases in major illness and the unfair and avoidable inequalities that will worsen by 2040 should nothing change. However, it also highlights that the burden of these inequalities are worse in our areas of deprivation.

The projections covered within the report are challenging, however they are not inevitable and by acting now we can secure a better future for our communities and residents.

The report takes a detailed look at the current health of County Durham residents and highlights how health and social care, healthy behaviours, and the wider determinants of health impact on our lives and affect our health. It provides examples of how County Durham's approach to wellbeing has informed system improvements and highlights interventions that if we scale up or do more of, can continue to improve outcomes for our residents.  

The report concludes with a list of recommendations which highlights opportunities to build on existing work and identify new opportunities to further embed the approach to wellbeing in the development and implementation of new systematic preventative approaches. I hope you find this report useful.  

The conclusion re-iterates the fact that no work to improve public health can be achieved without working with others, our partners and most importantly our local communities."

Director of Public Health Annual Report 2024 (PDF, 2 MB)

All of the Director of Public Health Annual Reports are available to download from the Durham Insight website where they sit alongside the publicly available intelligence and population data for our county that informs the reports.

Health and wellbeing across County Durham

The Joint Strategic Needs and Asset Assessment (JSNAA) in County Durham builds a picture of current and future health and wellbeing needs of local people. It's a suite of resources locally that helps to inform the planning and improvement of local services and guides us in making the best use of funding available. We use it to shape joint commissioning priorities to improve health and wellbeing as well as reduce health inequalities in our communities.

You can read more about the JSNAA on Durham Insight.