'Tackling the wider social determinants of health and health inequalities: evidence from systematic reviews' is a synthesis of existing evidence relating to interventions to improve public health and reduce health inequalities. It is published by the Public Health Reseacrh Consortium, which is funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme.
The paper is based on a review of research relating to health outcomes of interventions largely within the living and working environment arena. There are some significant gaps in the research apparent, perhaps most significantly in respect of education (in respect of adult health) and access to health and social care.

The evidence is quite suggestive of some positive impacts principally within the fields of housing and employment, although the evidence base is quite thin and some of the impacts appear quite small.

Research Sandwell has produced a summary of the document, which can be found on our Briefing Notes page.

Sport England's Active People Survey is now in its third phase, APS3, which is being conducted on a rolling basis between October 2008 and October 2009. Regular rolling updates are possible using the four most recent quarters of the survey. Further details can be found on Sport England's website.

The Black Country Consortium has produced a headline summary from the latest release, which can be downloaded here.

The Office for National Statistics have recently released the numbers of deaths registered in 2008. As you can see from the chart below, Sandwell has the highest Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR) for both males and females, with an SMR of 118 male deaths rate are 18% higher than the national average, and 16% higher for females.

Note: SMRs have been calculated using Mid 2007 mid year estimates

The latest Male and Female Life Expectancy figures for 2006 (2005-2007) have been released.

Sandwell's female life expectancy (LE) figures for 2006 (2005-2007) shows a rise by 0.3 to 80 years LE from birth. Overall, since the 1996 (1995-1997) baseline, life expectancy has increased by 18 months. This is just over 6 months behind the increase in female LE shown overall for England.

Life Expectancy is part of the Public Service Agreement (PSA) range of targets, for females the 10% reduction in the Inequalities gap with England gives Sandwell a 2010 target of 81.4 years, based on current trajectory Sandwell will not achieve this target figure until 2018. However, based on the last 4 years performance this figure may be achieved by 2012.

2005-2007 data shows that Male Life Expectancy in Sandwell has fallen by 0.2 to 74.2 years LE from birth. Overall, since the 1996 baseline, male life expectancy in Sandwell has increased by 20 months, just over 16 months behind the level of increase shown by England in the same period.

The results of the second national Active People Survey were released on 11th December. Unfortunately, owing to the reduced sample size, it is difficult to draw any robust conclusions with regard to how things have changed in Sandwell since the previous survey. The achieved sample for the initial survey in Sandwell was 996, but only 519 for the new survey. The survey is used to report NI8, Adult Participation in Sport. Sandwell's position has improved for this indicator from 14.9% to 16.2%, but the change is not statistically significant. For five out of six of the other indicators reported by the survey, Sandwell has declined since the first survey, albeit with similar reservations in respect of statistical significance.

To see the headline results for Sandwell and its neighbouring Black Country boroughs, the Black Coutry Consortium has produced a very useful summary, which can be downloaded here.