Published: 12 March 2025
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: Tooth decay among five-year-olds, quality of the air we breathe, healthy life expectancy, information from the Schools Health Research Network 2023 survey, mortality indicators and hip fractures among older people.
Tooth decay among five-year-olds
- Overall in Wales, the mean number of missing, decayed or filled teeth has decreased from 1.9 to 1.1 between 2007/8 to 2022/23. However, the gap between least and most deprived has remained similar.
Quality of the air we breathe
- Despite a slight increase in the concentration of pollutants (NO2) in the air between 2020 and 2022, overall, the concentration of air pollutants has remained below pre-pandemic (2019) levels.
Healthy Life Expectancy
- Since before the Covid pandemic (2017-19), healthy life expectancy at birth (HLE) has fallen by 2.2 years in females and 1.1 years in males. The latest HLE figures are 59.6 years in females, compared to 60.3 years in males.
- In 2021-23, life expectancy at birth was 82.0 years in females and 78.1 years in males. These figures have remained largely unchanged in Wales since 2010-12, notwithstanding a dip during the Covid pandemic period.
Information from the Schools Health Research Network 2023 survey
- There is a significant difference between the percentage of boys versus girls who were physically active every day at 22.8 per cent and 13.7 per cent respectively.
- The percentage of children living in high-affluence households taking part in exercise every day was 20.4 per cent, while in low-affluence households, it was 15.3 per cent.
- Smoking rates were higher in adolescents from lower-affluence households compared to higher-affluence (4.0 per cent versus 2.1 per cent), while alcohol consumption was more prevalent in higher-affluence households (37.6 per cent versus 34.4 per cent).
Mortality indicators (premature deaths from non-communicable diseases, deaths from road traffic injuries, deaths from injuries, suicides)
- There are more than twice as many premature deaths from non-communicable diseases in the most deprived fifth versus least deprived fifth (489 versus 198).
- Deaths from injuries per 100,000 people have increased from a rate of 40.4 in 2019-21 to 48.9 in 2021-23. This has been primarily driven by an increase in accidental falls (ICD codes W00-W19) in the 65+ population.
- The disparity in the rate of deaths from injury between the most and least deprived fifths continues to increase over time.
- The rates of deaths from road traffic incidents per 100,000 is nearly 4 four times higher in males than females (1.3 versus 4.9).
- The rate of deaths from confirmed suicides in the most deprived fifth is nearly double that of those in the least deprived fifth (8.3 versus 16.1).
- The rate of deaths from confirmed suicide per 100,000 continues to be higher for males than females: over three times higher in the 2019-23 period (19.7 per cent versus 5.7 per cent respectively). Although there is a pronounced difference in the rate of deaths from suicide between males and females, the same pattern is not seen in the reported rates of suicide attempts (see A cross-national study on gender differences in suicide intent | BMC Psychiatry | Full Text; ResearchBriefingGenderSuicide_2021_v7.pdf).
Hip fractures among older people
- The completeness of diagnostic coding for hospital admissions has decreased in recent years. For hip fractures, there is visible correlation between the changes in admission rates and changes in coding completeness over time. Due to this we are not showing areas where 10% or more of admitting episodes were missing a primary diagnosis (see technical information for details).
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.
https://publichealthwales.shinyapps.io/PHOF_Dashboard_Eng/