Published: 3 October 2024
Public Health Wales has refreshed the indicators in the Public Health Outcomes Framework reporting tool.
First published in March 2016, the purpose of the Public Health Outcomes Framework is to help understand the impact which individual behaviours, public services, programmes and policies are having on health and wellbeing in Wales.
In this iteration the following indicators have been updated: low birth weight, breastfeeding, vaccination rates at age four, and employment gaps.
Across Wales the percentage of babies weighing under 2.5kg at birth is climbing upwards, with the 2023 figure of 6.2 per cent being statistically significantly higher than 5.5 per cent in 2013. This equates to a 12.6 per cent increase.
When broken down by deprivation, only the most deprived fifth shows a significant difference between 2013 and 2023 (increasing from 6.5 per cent to 8.3 per cent, equating to an increase of 26.5 per cent). In comparison, 4.8 per cent of babies in the least deprived fifth were born weighing under 2.5kg.
In 2023 only 28.4 per cent of children in Wales in the most deprived fifth were exclusively breastfed at 10 days, compared to 48.2 per cent in the least deprived fifth. The percentage across local authorities ranges from 23.4 per cent to 49.1 per cent. It is worth noting that confidence intervals for the data are quite large (reaching up to 9.2 per cent between lower and upper limits).
The percentage of children who are up to date with vaccinations at the age of 4 remains steady at 84.3 per cent in 2023 compared with 88.0 per cent in 2019/20; comparable with pre-pandemic levels. This is lower than the WHO target of 95 per cent (though this is not an age-specific target).
The gap in the employment rate between Wales as a whole and those with a long-term health condition was 12.2 per cent in 2023. This figure is not comparable to previous years due to changes to survey methodology; however, it is not significantly different from the 2022/23 England figure of 10.4 per cent (Fingertips | Department of Health and Social Care (phe.org.uk)).
The Public Health Outcomes Framework is produced on behalf of Welsh Government and was developed in the context of other national strategies and frameworks that seek to inspire and inform action to improve the health of the nation. In particular, it underpins the national indicators for the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, by providing a more detailed range of measures that reflect the wider determinants that influence health and well-being.