School food: the essential guide contains a series of eight practical guidance booklets designed to help schools improve pupils' nutrition and implement healthier eating and drinking practices. The booklets provide advice and support for the key areas in which food, drinks and nutrition issues affects schools. Mini case studies support the advice given and, where appropriate, the booklets provide details of recommended further resources.

Individual booklets in the series are available as PDF files below:

This guide has been written to help your school develop, write and implement a whole school food policy. It is designed to be easy to follow and based firmly in the context of real school life.

This resource was originally developed and produced by the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland as part of the School food: top marks programme and is now the responsibility of the Public Health Agency. It was jointly funded by the Department of Education and the Department of Heath, Social Services and Public Safety.

This edition of Transmit focuses on some of the issues and volume of work being handled by the health protection duty room since January 2010. It features an outline of the arrangements for the team leading work on emergency preparedness and environmental hazards, an update – including the uptake rates – on the childhood vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases, the risks associated with exposure to bats and rabies, and new guidance that has been issued by the DHSSPS in relation to HIV infection and post-exposure prophylaxis, including sexual exposure.

This joint PHA/HSCB Hidden Harm Action Plan - Responding to the needs of children born to and living with parental alcohol and drug misuse in Northern Ireland, has been prepared for the DHSSPS in response to the PfA target on Hidden Harm. The plan was approved by DHSSPS in October 2009.

This is the report of the interagency Outbreak Control Team (OCT) of an investigation of an outbreak of listeriosis which occurred during May to November 2008 in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

The report describes the chronology of the outbreak and the outcome of epidemiological, environmental health and microbiological investigations. The report concludes with recommendations for public health, Trusts, the Department of Health and Social Services and Public Safety, the Food Standards Agency, and those responsible for hospital food procurement.
 

This booklet explains how to care for the teeth of children with special needs.

Malaria is a serious, sometimes fatal, disease spread by mosquitoes. It is common in many tropical countries and is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium. This two page leaflet covers the types of parasite that carry malaria, where it is most commonly found and the preventative measures you can take to avoid malaria.

This publication, the 13th issue of R&D Today - the biannual newsletter of the Health and Social Care Research and Development Division (HC R&D) - profiles the work supported by Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care R&D fund. This issue reflects the position of HSC R&D as a division of the regional Public Health Agency.

This first annual report of the Director of Public Health highlights the many public health challenges that affect people in Northern Ireland and how the public health team tackles this complex agenda by working with many statutory, community and voluntary partner organisations across health, local government, education, housing and other sectors.

Transmit is the monthly newsletter for the health protection service of the Public Health Agency. It provides up-to-date information on a range of health protection issues, with in-depth coverage of a different work area each month.

Issue 1 includes an update on the PHA duty room, information on the work of the Healthcare Associated Infections team and other health protection news.