Teenage pregnancies are a big problem for health bosses (From Worcester News)

Teenage pregnancies are a big problem for health bosses

7:59am Tuesday 24th June 2008 in

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TEENAGE pregnancies and alcohol-related hospital stays remain a major concern for Worcester’s health professionals.

Health profile figures released today show 47 in every 1,000 girls under the age of 18 falls pregnant (the national average is 41 per cent) and hospital stays related to alcohol are above the national average.

Worcestershire PCT’s director of public health, Dr Richard Harling, said these two factors concerned him and other people working to combat the problems of binge drinking and teenage pregnancy.

“These are the ones I am worried about,” he said.

“Teenage pregnancy is still a problem for us, rates have come down a little bit but not nearly as much as we would like. There is a lot of work going on to try and address this, we are re-doubling our efforts.”

Regarding hospital admissions related to alcohol, Dr Harling said: “It is a worrying one where nationally there has been an increase year on year.”

In Worcester 342 of every 100,000 hospital admissions were alcohol-related, the national average being 260 per every 100,000.

Although Dr Harling said these were difficult to differentiate between Friday night revellers and people with chronic liver disease.

Other areas Worcester fell below the national average were in smoking in pregnancy and breast feeding initiation. Dr Harling said these were old statistics and the figures are now much better. “It is now around the national average and coming down,” he said.

A high level of violent crime was also indicated, with 2048 reported. Dr Harling concluded the report was promising, however there were still many areas they needed to work on. “The smoking agenda is still very important, the national average is still too high and we want to see it come down,” he said.

He added 25 per cent of people in Worcester were obese and this he wanted to see decreasing.

In Wychavon, four per cent of people have been diagnosed with diabetes; violent crime was low with 979 reported cases.

It also has fewer adults who smoke – 18.9 per cent compared to the national average of 24.1 per cent and 93 per cent of the children are active.

Meanwhile, in the Malvern district men and women can expect to live longer than the national average, men 78.5 years compared to 77.3 nationally and women 82 years against the national average of 81.6 per cent.

However you are more at risk of suffering a hip fracture if you are over 65.

There were 592 emergency hospital admissions for hip fractures in 2006/7, the national average is 479.

The survey was produced by the Department of Health and offers a snapshot into the health of each town and city in the UK.

National findings included: More children in Malvern Hills get at least two hours of high quality PE per week than those in Newcastle-under-Lyme - 99 per cent compared to 63 per cent respectively.

l Breastfeeding rates are at a national average of 69 per cent.

l Obesity amongst reception year children averaged just under 10 per cent.

l Deaths from smoking related diseases continue to fall across England.

We will feature Wychavon, Malvern and Worcestershire in more detail in your Worcester News this week.