Alcohol statistics Scotland 2007 report

Alcohol statistics Scotland - 2007 has been published by ISD and also features on the Alcohol Information Scotland site. This is a compendium of statistics on alcohol, derived from health, social care, criminal justice, customs & excise and survey data. There are four main sections :

• the alcohol market
• alcohol consumption
• alcohol and health harm
• alchol and social harm

Much of the information has been published previously by a wide range of organisations but the report publishes for the first time various ISD data which includes:

• 2004/05 information from psychiatric discharges with an alcohol related diagnosis (SMR 04)
• 2005/06 information from hospital discharges with an alcohol related diagnosis. (SMR 01)

UK Gov't POSTnote on ethnicity and health

This POSTnote from the UK Gov't Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology reviews the evidence on ethnic health inequalities, the causes and policy options. As the abstract states "Black and minority ethnic (BME) groups generally have worse health than the overall population, although some BME groups fare much worse than others, and patterns vary from one health condition to the next. Evidence suggests that the poorer socio-economic position of BME groups is the main factor driving ethnic health inequalities."

BMJ online

The British Medical Journal has re-organised it's web-site and, by the end of the year, intends to publish all articles online before they appear in print making the print version a sub-set of the online version. This has already been the case for some articles, for example, original research articles and "news extra" items but this will change the focus of the journal from the weekly print version to the individual article and online access. The BMJ is available via the NHS e-library.

iMHIP monthly e-newsletter published.

The January e-newsletter of the Improving Mental Health Information Programme has been published. The iMHIP is part of ISD Scotland. This months e-newsletter contains information on the NHS Health Scotland programme of work to establish mental health indicators for Scotland, including the development of a new scale, the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) to assess positive mental health. There are a number of other features on developments within mental health information in Scotland. The iMHIP website contains the current and back issues of the e-newsletter and subscription (free) details.

UK Pub Med Central launched

Over 500,000 medical research papers are now available for free on the internet, following the launch of the UK PubMed Central online archive. The aim of UKPMC is to create a stable, permanent and free-to-access digital archive of the full text, peer-reviewed research publications (and datasets) that arise from research funded by the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and other members of the UKPMC Funders Group.

Under the protocols of UKPMC researchers funded by one of the funder institutions retain the copyright to the article but are expected to make it freely available via an open access journal or by submitting the article to the UKPMC.

Many of the open access journals are available on the NHS Scotland E-library but UKPMC represents a new model for the dissemination of the medical research which mirrors the successful US PubMed Central service.

self-help therapy and alcohol problems reports published

A couple of reports that may be of interest have been added to the library.

The Scottish Executive have published "Delivering for Health: Delivering for Mental Health: Using self-help in primary care and community based services: a guide to everyday service delivery for mild to moderate psychological problems" according to their website it "provides an interactive practical approach to setting up supported self-help services for the treatment of psychological problems in a primary care/community based setting".

The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, a specialist health authority within the NHS in England, have published a "Review of the effectiveness of treatment for alcohol problems". The authors are Duncan Raistrick, Nick Heather and Christine Godfery and it aims to provide a "critical appraisal of the international evidence of the effectiveness of treatments and interventions for alcohol problems".