The NatCen Blog

Here we’ll be talking about our research in the context of the latest news, opinion and
analysis through comments from our team of experts. We’d love to hear from you, so post comments or get in touch with us.

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Posted on 15 June 2022 by Eliska Holland, Researcher

Exploring the relationship between loneliness and mental health

Loneliness is something that many people will experience from time to time and is part of the human experience. Defined as ‘a subjective, unwelcome feeling of lack or loss of companionship’, loneliness is not the same as social isolation and people can feel lonely even if they have a lot of social contact.
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Tags: health, health and lifestyle, loneliness, mental health, qualitative research, social
Posted on 19 January 2022 by Phoebe Weston-Stanley, Research Assistant

Current and past trends in tobacco and e-cigarette use and the impact of control measures

Despite the ever-decreasing use of tobacco, smoking remains a primary cause of early death in the developed world.
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Tags: e-cigarettes, health, health and lifestyle, smoking
Posted on 10 January 2018 by Gillian Prior, Deputy Chief Executive and Director

Celebrating the launch of the new Health Survey for England

Today we have relaunched the summary website for the Health Survey for England, updated to include the most recent data from the 2016 survey.
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Tags: Health Survey for England, health, health and lifestyle, healthy eating
Posted on 19 August 2015

Is the true cost of diabetes even more than we think?

Over the past decade, the number of people living with diabetes has increased by over 1 million people, according to new research released this week. But what about the people who don’t know they have diabetes?
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Tags: Health Survey for England, NHS, diabetes, health and lifestyle
Posted on 28 August 2013

What matters to children's wellbeing?

We’ve been looking into what predicts subjective wellbeing in children and the results are fascinating.
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Tags: Change4Life, child wellbeing, children, family, health, health and lifestyle, predictors of wellbeing, secondary analysis, subjective wellbeing
Posted on 16 December 2011

The High Street, Localism and Community Voices; challenges raised by the Portas Review

The Portas Review, released this week, set out a vision for strengthening, supporting and developing British high streets. A crucial element of this review focused on the need to give communities greater say in how their high streets are developed, their look and feel and sorts of services they offer. This has clear resonance to the localism agenda but raises important questions about how to balance (potentially conflicting) viewpoints from different community sectors – in short, how do you decide which sectors’ voice is most important?
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Tags: British Gambling Prevalence Survey, gambling, health and lifestyle
Posted on 15 December 2011

A healthy view of a healthy weight?

The Health Survey for England 2010 published its findings today with chapters covering a wide range of health issues including well-being, sexual health and respiratory conditions. In particular, a chapter about children’s overweight and obesity highlighted some interesting findings around children’s perceptions of their own weight.
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Tags: children and young people, Health Survey for England, health and lifestyle, society, child obesity
Posted on 24 November 2011

Home is where the heart is

As we enter the Christmas period its traditional for news coverage to turn to the homeless. Homelessness isn't just about losing a home - numerous studies have found a complex link with homelessness and trauma. Yet it is also true that homelessness is always a housing issue. Carol McNaughton Nicholls discusses our hosting of a breakfast briefing with experts from the US and Europe presenting evidence on the success of a US based approach called Housing First to policy stakeholders.
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Tags: Housing First, health and lifestyle, homelessness, housing, society, trauma
Posted on 26 October 2011

Healthy lifestyles – behaviours, awareness and barriers to change

Earlier this month the Government published its latest obesity report ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A call to action on obesity in England’, which follows the Public Health White Paper at the end of 2010. Plans for the future direction of Change4Life, the marketing component of the Government’s anti-obesity campaign, were also announced on the same day. We examined eating behaviours (particularly in respect of the ‘5-A-DAY’ initiative) and barriers to adopting a healthy lifestyle as part of the Health Survey for England 2007 reporting.
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Tags: Health Survey for England, health and lifestyle, society, obesity
Posted on 12 October 2011 by Soazig Clifton, Research Director

Cigarette smoking and mental health in England

World Mental Health Day was this week. The theme this year was ‘Investing in mental health’, so it was heartening to see the Department of Health and Comic Relief committed to giving £20 million to the next phase of Time to Change, England’s programme to tackle mental health related stigma and discrimination. Soazig draws on findings from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) 2007 that reveal the relationship between smoking and mental health in England.
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Tags: APMS, Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, health and lifestyle, health and wellbeing, mental health, smoking