19th January 2018
Short weekly update from the CEO of Public Health England (PHE), including:
- publication of a review of the latest evidence on the health and wellbeing benefits of making high streets in urban settings more inclusive, safer and healthier, particularly in areas of high deprivation.
- a Code of Practice was launched by an alliance of some of the largest out-of-home food and drink companies, including McDonalds, Wetherspoons, Whitbread, Greggs and Starbucks. This sets out their public commitment to achieve the sugar reduction target of 20% by 2020 promised in the Childhood Obesity Plan.
- publication of PHE’s fifth Routes to Diagnosis update which marks a decade’s worth of data, covering over 3 million diagnoses of cancer, making it the most comprehensive data of its kind in the world.
- appointment of Tracey Crouch MP as the Minister for Loneliness. This is a new portfolio to tackle a problem that affects 9 million people, both old and young
- the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine includes an article on e-cigarettes, which refers positively to the UK position emphasising PHE’s contribution to harm reduction.
