New mapping tool available via Warwickshire County Council intranet

Warwickshire County Council has just developed a new online mapping tool. Called Compass, the system will only be available to people with access to the County Council network initially, but plans are already in place to develop versions to allow partners to view geographic data and to share maps with the wider community later in the year.

Founded upon a range of open source software solutions, the system has already saved the County Council significant amounts of money, and is attracting interest from a range of bodies such as the Ordnance Survey. The development work that we have done to date has also been released back into the open source geographic information community, potentially saving other public and voluntary bodies time and money.

If you have access to the Warwickshire County Council intranet, you can try it out immediately at the following web address:

http://compass/

Unfortunately, those of you outside of the County’s network will have to wait a little longer to try it, though we would be happy to come and demonstrate the system and to start gathering views on how the system might benefit your organisations and customers in the future.

For further information, or to arrange a demonstration, please contact the corporate GIS team at GIS@warwickshire.gov.uk.

‘Wake-up call for Warwickshire’

A ‘wake-up call for Warwickshire’ is how the county’s Director of Public Health has described figures revealed by the new Public Health England Longer Lives website.

The County is ranked 41^st out of 150 for overall premature mortality with a rate of 244 deaths per 100,000 population for 2009-11. The best performing authority was Dorset (200 deaths per 100,000) and worst was Manchester (455 deaths per 100,000).

Binge drinking and smoking are just two of the ways that can shorten a life, and Dr John Linnane, Warwickshire’s Director of Public Health says the report should act as a wake-up call. He said: “Currently in Warwickshire about a third of all deaths are defined as premature (deaths under the age of 75). This is a wake-up call for Warwickshire and an opportunity for public health to tackle the wider determinants of health and become more influential around educational attainment, economic prospects and lifestyle behaviours. Compared to the national picture Warwickshire is ranked in the ‘best’ category for the mortality indicators other than liver disease – this is particularly worrying with the county having a higher than the national average rate of binge drinking.”

The total premature deaths figure of 4,667 for Warwickshire quoted on the Longer Lives website is for the 3 year period 2009–2011. This equates to approximately 1,500 premature deaths annually or 30% of all deaths. Although the County is ranked 41st overall, it is ranked 12th out of 15 comparator areas (areas with similar socioeconomic deprivation).

The new website aims to allow people to easily see local information for the West Midlands on early deaths from major killers like heart disease, stroke and cancer, and how it varies across the area and the country.

Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) profiles now updated

On 31st May 2013, ONS released the latest update to the Local Enterprise Partnership Profiles. The LEP Profiles bring together official statistics from a range of topics including employment, economy and demography to enable the Local Authorities within each LEP to better understand their areas.

Respiratory Data Tool

Respiratory disease which includes COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and pneumonia is the third biggest killer in the UK after heart disease and cancer; 1 in 50 adults has COPD and 1 in 14 has asthma.

INHALE (INteractive Health Atlas for Lung conditions in England)  is the first single source of shared, accessible, actionable data on respiratory disease. The information is available as data reports, containing sets of important respiratory indicators that show how a particular geographical clinical commissioning group (CCG) area compares to the national and regional averages.  Interactive maps for CCGs are also available using the atlases provided. The atlases allow creation of maps and charts and to easily make comparisons between CCGs as well as between indicators.

COPD prevalence in both South Warwickshire and Coventry & Rugby CCGs is below the England average of 1.7%. In Warwickshire North the prevalence rate is slightly above the England average at 1.8%.

Complimentary to the Respiratory Data Tool is the Asthma Data Tool that draws together a range of thirteen asthma-related indicators from primary and secondary care. The indicators can be displayed in two formats:

Asthma Data Atlas: data for each Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in England are assembled in the form of an interactive map so it is easy to see the geographical variation, and trends over time. A useful facility allows users to compare one measure with another so relationships between measures can be visualised.

Asthma Spine Charts: data for all CCGs in England are benchmarked against the England value making it possible to see whether a CCG is significantly higher, lower or similar to the England value. The spine charts are also interactive so that comparison of more than one CCG is possible, and data for all indicators are displayed so that a quick overview of the asthma care pathway is possible.

Asthma prevalence across the Warwickshire North and Coventry & Rugby CCGs at 6.0% is below that of South Warwickshire CCG (6.3%) but above the England average of 5.8%.

The Warwickshire Observatory team wins an award for ‘Best Use of Public Data 2013′!

Last week the Warwickshire Observatory team won a LARIA Research Impact Award for the ‘Best Use of Public Data 2013′.

The award was presented to the team for the annual Quality of Life report which included innovative work on data visualisations and interactive maps on the Local Information System. The Research team led on the project and were supported by both the Public Health Intelligence Team and the Geographical Information System (GIS) Team and received contributions from various County Council teams and partner agencies.

The submissions had to show how they have used secondary analysis of publically available data to lead to a greater understanding of a local area, community or health issue. This could include official statistics such as census, health, economy, labour market or any other publically available datasets such as public opinion, transparency or financial data. They also had to show that this has led to evidence-based decision-making within the public sector. It was also desired that he winner showed strong partnership working and innovation in their entry.

The award recognises the work of the three Observatory teams; the Research Team, the Public Health Intelligence Team and the Geographical Information System (GIS) Team (see picture for the three teams’ members).

Congratulations to everyone involved in the project! Work is already underway on this year’s report.

 

You are one in 43.5 million!

If you are reading this electronically you must be an internet user and are therefore one of the 86% in the UK who report that they have used it.  However, according to the latest figures produced by the Office for National Statistics, 7.1 million adults (14%) in the UK have never accessed the internet.  Adults are defined as people aged 16 years and over and, as might be expected, age is a factor in the use of the internet with only 34% of people aged over 75 years reporting that they had ever used it.  In contrast 99% of those aged 16 – 24 years have used it at some time.  Slightly more men are reported to have used the internet than women, i.e. 88% compared to 84%.

Figures for Warwickshire show that in the first quarter of 2013 69,000 adults (15.8%) were non users.   This is roughly average for the upper tier authorities in the West Midlands – the ‘worst’ area is Herefordshire where 26.5% of adults report that they have never used the internet.  The ‘best’ area is Telford and Wrekin where the percentage is 10.5%.

The figures are from the Labour Force Survey which is a survey of the employment circumstances of the UK population.  It is the largest household survey in the UK - 60,000 households are interviewed each quarter.

The full survey results can be found on the ONS website: http://bit.ly/14nKaA4.

 

Summer Student Placement in the team

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a student to come and work in the Observatory for four to six weeks over the summer (July/August).

The student will need to be studying in a related discipline (statistics, economics, geography etc.), be highly numerate and willing to work across a range of projects within our team. The main focus for the placement will be working on our high profile ‘Quality of Life in Warwickshire’ report that our team produces annually. In return, the student will gain an insight into working in public sector research and will gain some excellent experience for their CV.

A link to the full details of the placement is below:

Warwickshire Observatory – Student Placement (Summer 2013)

Deadline for applications: 16th June 2013

If you have any questions, please email the team on research@warwickshireobservatory.org