Public Health to publish pandemic ‘health and lifestyle’ survey

Public Health Gibraltar has been working on a health and lifestyle survey in a bid to capture the overall health of the community during the pandemic.

Another survey on children will be carried out which will analyse how the pandemic has affected the young.

The last health and lifestyle survey was published by the GHA in 2015 and, during the pandemic, staff at Public Health Gibraltar have been analysing the pressure points in local health.

Obesity, diabetes, lack of exercise and smoking are all subjects that have been touched upon in previous surveys.

Now with the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team has been assessing how Gibraltar could be healthier.

"We're going to have a comprehensive assessment of information about Gibraltar's well-being and health," Director of Public Health, Dr Sohail Bhatti said.

He added that this will enable Gibraltar to have a dialogue about health.

"Nearly everyone thinks they're in great health, but then you ask them about their weight and you find they're obese."

"There's health literacy as well, do [people] even know what being healthy is?"

He described how people really do not understand what being in good health is and how to lead a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

"There's a huge amount of work to be done about health literacy and health awareness,” he said.