Research

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Towards a Healthier Britain: The Potential Role of Food Supplements in Government Policy
This report, commissioned by PAGB, is a response to the Cabinet Office publication, ‘Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century’ which sets out the government’s vision for food policy and considers the impact of nutrition on the health of the UK’s population.  The government recognises that people’s diets need to change and that if they ‘met nutritional guidelines, 70,000 premature deaths could be prevented each year’. But is the nation meeting these dietary recommendations? 

In the report, nutrition expert, Dr Pamela Mason, provides an analysis of the nation’s nutritional intake and discusses the potential role for food supplements, particularly vitamins and minerals, and identifies the nutritional gap that currently exists.

• Willingness to self-medicate when feeling the onset of a minor ailment
• Barriers to routine self-medication when feeling the onset of a minor ailment
• Factors influencing product choice of non-prescription medicines
• From what sources are consumers expecting to get information in the future to help them take care of their health and minor ailments
• To what extent do consumers agree or disagree with the concept of more prescription medicines being available without doctor involvement
  

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Self Care Aware: Joining Up Self Care in the NHS
What is the community impact of a coordinated approach to self care?  The outcome of an action research project in Erewash PCT

JUSC is a strategy to improve the interface between primary care and the community. This will ensure that service demand is efficiently managed, actively supporting the individual’s own ability to combine self care, when possible, with primary care, when needed.

Joining Up Self Care in Erewash centred on three disease-related modules:

• Prevention of coronary heart disease in people aged over 30 year
• Long term condition management by adults with asthma
• Treatment of minor ailments by mothers with young families

The PCT also made concerted efforts to engage with healthcare professionals, including providing bespoke self care aware consultation training. These activities culminated in the introduction of a GP Local Enhanced Service promoting self care.

The study found an increase in the reduction of risk factors in CHD, confidence levels in managing asthma and mothers’ willingness to self treat many children’s minor ailments as well as a more positive attitude towards self care among health professionals and PCT managers.

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JUSC Summary Report
JUSC Full Report
JUSC Annexes
JUSC Summary by WiPP (The Working in Partnership Programme)

A Picture of Health
This report summarises a national consumer survey, carried out by independent research organisation NOP World in May 2005, into people’s experience of everyday ailments and health conditions – such as colds, headaches, allergies, indigestion and muscle aches – and how they deal with them.

The findings offer a fascinating insight into how we manage our everyday health and, in particular, show our strong preference for looking after ourselves as far as we can.

The study was commissioned jointly by PAGB and Reader’s Digest in order to gain an up-to-date, objective picture of how we approach everyday health matters.

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A Summary Profile of the OTC Consumer
PAGB has developed a summary profile of the OTC consumer and how they manage their health, their attitudes and actions taken. Most of the data is quantitative, and a short commentary is provided to highlight key points. Key data comes from BMRB, Mintel, Kings Fund and Prism (Reader’s Digest) research reports, although several others are also referenced.

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Everyday Healthcare Study 1997: A Consumer Study of Self-medication in Great Britain
In 1986, PAGB commissioned the British Market Research Bureau to conduct the first national survey of everyday healthcare in Britain. Ten years later, changes in the healthcare environment and market meant that there was a need for the 1986 research to be updated. In 1996/97 the study was repeated using the same methodology. Together these studies show how people in Britain view their health, their sources of advice and information and how they treat minor ailments.

What does the study show?

• The Everyday Healthcare Study shows that the British public are sensible and cautious in their use of medicines. We are not a pill for every ill society
• With the right advice and help people are confident that they can manage minor ailments themselves and they do so.
• People value the availability of over the counter medicines
• People find OTC medicines effective and they tend to use the same product each time they experience the same illness.
• The doctor is still the most important advisor and health care influence
• Many people are visiting doctors for advice and treatment of ailments that they could manage themselves

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