Parent power

The Incredible Years parenting programme has been much studied: added to the literature is a two-year follow-up evaluation. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology alliteratively devotes its February issue to evidence-based parenting programmes to promote positive parenting. Highlights include a review of FAST (Families and Schools Together), as used in the UK, US, Holland and Germany, which has a good track record for retaining low income families. Also there's a paper looking at the use of parenting programmes to address child maltreatment along with an account of a study that considers how far parenting programmes aimed at improving a child's life chances should address literacy as well as child behaviour.

Indicators

Marmot local authority indicators for 2012 are now out. Two years on from the publication of the Marmot review, it seems that inequalities have widened between wealthiest and most deprived areas even while life expectancy continues to improve. As the man says, "while indicators show improvements in many areas, this is not the time to start celebrating."

Fair's Fare latest issue

is available now from the EPHRU website ....

In my car

Fresh Start is the Welsh Assembly Government's health promotion campaign designed to reduce smoking in cars where children are present. Last year the BMA recommended legislating on the matter, although was shouted down by the press for overstating levels of risk. A study in Tobacco Control attempts to measure children's exposure to secondhand smoke during a typical car journey. The tendency for smoking cessation interventions to target parents via their children is put under the microscope in a meta-analysis and systematic review.

Downward trend

Age UK suggests that there is a crisis in social care funding for older people. Along with expressing this concern about reduced funding from local authorities and DH, Age UK is also anticipating the White Paper on social care, due to be published in the spring. Thus the report encourages the government to take up recommendations from the Law Commission report on social care legislative reform and the Dilnot report on funding for social care.

Can we afford to eat well?

Does healthy eating mean a bigger food bill, asks a study in the British Journal of General Practice (BJGP). Based on a diet diaries from children aged 5-16 attending childhood obesity clinics in primary and acute care, researchers compared the cost of current diet with a diet based on the Eatwell Plate, when purchased in budget and mid-range supermarkets, as well as high street purchase. The healthy diet was more expensive in all three contexts, although only marginally so. However, a poor diet based on purchase from a budget supermarket remained the cheapest option and thus could present a barrier to the most disadvantaged families. This issue of BJGP also includes a simulation study on counselling patients on dietary behaviour change and a feasibility study on transferring childhood obesity clinics from acute to primary care. Public health professionals and policy-makers from Victoria, Australia reflect on the experience of funding and managing community based obesity prevention initiatives.

On the move

A high level of residential mobility is typical of families with young children, research based on the UK Millennium Cohort Study finds and mobile families tend to be disadvantaged in socio-economic and health terms. Although for most families this means a move into a less deprived area than their original circumstances, for the minority of families that move into more deprived areas health outcomes are significantly worse and this impacts on health inequalities between areas with different levels of deprivation. A similar study mines data from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study to assess health impacts from childhood mobility in late adolescence and adulthood.

You know, for kids ...

DH has announced the setting up of an expert panel to develop a strategy to improve care for children and young people. The Children and Young People's Forum, to be modelled on the NHS Future Forum, will be jointly chaired by Professor Ian Lewis (Medical Director at Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust) and Christian Lenehan (of the Council for Disabled Children). Data from the Generation R Study is examined to assess how far prenatal, perinatal and postnatal factors affect socioeconomic inequalities in childhood asthma. The UK Millennium Cohort Study is mined for evidence for the impact of home environment on inequalities in unintentional injury in early childhood. Researchers found that housing quality and safety equipment use did not explain socioeconomic inequalities in injuries.

The first cut...

What are the early indications from the local authority budget cuts since 2010? A report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation sifts through the evidence, looking in particular at how far local authorities are meeting the needs of the most deprived communities, how services are being redesigned or more closely targeted and what kinds of change lie ahead.

Maternity matters

A review of determinants of late or inadequate use of antenatal healthcare found that late booking was associated with the usual suspects, including low income, high levels of unemployment and smoking status. With this in mind, some research into using Trust databases to identify predictors of late booking in antenatal care could also be useful. A report from the stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands presses for urgent improvements in UK antenatal care. SANDS echoes the findings from last year's Lancet stillbirths series, which highlighted the UK's poor record compared with other developed countries on this matter. The latest issue of Seminars in Perinatology focuses on maternal deaths and includes a review of the UK confidential enquiries into maternal deaths.

Mapping tobacco use

Local tobacco control profiles for England 2011 are now online. Newly included is data relating to smoking prevalence overall and also in the routine and manual workers group. A study from the University of Nottingham looks at who receives prescriptions for smoking cessation medication (including nicotine replacement therapy, varenicline and bupropion). Analysing general practice data from the Health Improvement Network Database, researchers found that patients with COPD or depression were more likely to be given smoking cessation prescriptions, while younger and otherwise healthy individuals were least likely to receive them. Younger healthy individuals in the form of adolescents are the subject of a longitudinal social network analysis that seeks to map changes in friendship selection and smoking behaviour amongst British teenagers.