The Public Health Agency (PHA) and Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) are working together this winter to ensure that people prepare for the colder period. Their joint campaign, ‘Stay Well This Winter’, is urging people to look after themselves and take actions that will help them stay well during winter. Dr Carolyn Harper, Director of Public Health at the PHA, said: “Winter can affect people’s health, particularly those over 65 and people who have a long-term health condition.

The Our Future Foyle project ran a series of spellbinding events during the Halloween festival in Derry/Londonderry recently to promote the River Foyle as a site for recreation and healthy activities. Our Future Foyle is a partnership between the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and the Public Health Agency (PHA). The project aims to revitalise the river area with the local residents to create an uplifting and positive place for people to socialise and spend time in.

The Public Health Agency (PHA) has published a report on the extent of self-harm in Northern Ireland over the past three years. The Northern Ireland Registry of Self-Harm Three-Year Report 2012/13-2014/15 is an analysis of the prevalence of self-harm presentations to the 12 local Emergency Departments (EDs) of Northern Ireland’s hospitals.

It is estimated that there are 10,000 people in Northern Ireland who have diabetes but don’t know it, in addition to the 88,000 adults living here with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, so the Public Health Agency (PHA) is using World Diabetes Day on 14 November to remind everyone of the importance of ensuring early detection of diabetes and getting treatment to reduce risk of serious complications.

The latest figures released by the Public Health Agency (PHA) show a 13% overall decrease in new diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections. However, within that there was a small increase in new diagnoses of gonorrhoea and infectious syphilis during 2015. The ‘Sexually Transmitted Infection surveillance in Northern Ireland 2016: An analysis of data for the calendar year 2015’ report shows that in Northern Ireland Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) clinics in 2015: • 5,477 new STI diagnoses were made, a decrease of 13% compared with 2014 (6,292);