Today, Wednesday 16 November, NHS Shetland is publishing the results from its recent population health survey.
The survey, which was launched by the Public Health department, aimed to understand more about the health and wellbeing of our local communities. The data this survey has generated will help inform the board and partners about how services can be designed and delivered to improve health outcomes for all.
Before the survey was launched, the department was very aware that previous sample sizes from Shetland in national surveys, for example, were often not large enough and did not reflect local priorities. So with this in mind, carrying out a localised survey had been an ambition of the department for several years.
Between November 2021 and August 2022, 592 people responded with the overall results representing age, gender, andlocalities of local communities in Shetland.
The survey covered two main areas; the first area involved questions about individual characteristics and circumstances, such as the type of housing people live in, use of different types of transport, and employment.
The second area concerned health and wellbeing and focussed on various topics such as physical and mental health, habits around alcohol, physical activity, and food choices.
Nearly half of the respondents were aged 40-65 years, a third were over 65, and the rest were aged 18-39. The lowest response rate was among those aged 18-24 years. Almost a quarter of the households that responded included children. The results have provided the department with a representative snapshot of Shetland’s health and wellbeing between 2021 and 2022.
Dr Susan Laidlaw, Director of Public Health for NHS Shetland, said: "This survey highlights key areas of people’s lives that may affect their health, such as employment and housing, as well as how people feel about their own health and wellbeing.
“NHS Shetland will use the results of this survey to help develop and improve the services we offer and to work with organisations and communities to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities across Shetland. I hope that other organisations will also find the survey results helpful in their planning.
“I would like to thank all those people in Shetland who gave up their time to complete the survey and the team that analysed a huge amount of data to produce such a useful resource.”
Some examples of the results include:
- 44.7% of respondents identified that unaffordable heating costs are a problem for
- households.
- Over 40% of respondents reported that they would be interested in increasing their
- active travel.
- Perceptions of general health have worsened since before the pandemic with 3.1%
- of respondents feeling that their health was bad/very bad before the pandemic, compared to
- 4.9% at the time of the survey. Similarly, 76.3% felt that their health was good/very good
- before the pandemic, compared to 69.5% at the time of the survey.
- The majority of individuals (34.5%) reported that they were physically active on seven
- days of the past week, and 17% had been physically active for at least 2.5 hours in the week
- before the survey. When asked if they were interested in being more physically active,
- almost two-thirds of respondents reported that they would.
- Over half of 18-24-year-olds and half of 25-29-year-olds reported having felt lonely in
- the previous two weeks.
- Almost a quarter of men/boys reported living in chronic or consistent pain compared
- to under a fifth of women/girls.
The report can be viewed on the website:
Population Health Survey – Healthy Shetland
Over the coming weeks and months, the Public Health department will be engaging with partners to share this data and will explore how it can be used to inform service planning and delivery. As well as sharing the results, the department will also be inviting partners to get in touch with requests for more detailed analysis of the data. A pro-forma for requesting more detailed analysis can be found via the above link