Summary

The purpose of this project is to report on completeness and timeliness of recording and population trends in the most important disease risk factors (obesity, smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol and ethnicity) within primary care electronic health records.

The analytical objectives of this work were:

1. To report on population trends in completeness of recording of selected public health indicators (obesity, smoking, blood pressures and cholesterol) within primary care electronic health records.
2. To report on estimated population levels of obesity, smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol.
3. To determine how both recording and the values of each indicator vary by age, sex, material deprivation and government office region.
4. To determine the changes in trends in each indicator over the last 5 financial years.

Key findings

By the end of March 2007:

• 58% of registered patients aged 16+ had had their body mass index (BMI) recorded in the past 5 years. Of these 26% were obese (BMI>30)
• 80% of registered patients aged 16+ had smoking information recorded within their electronic health record in the past 5 years. Of these 22% were recorded as being current smokers
• 76% of registered patients aged 16+ had blood pressure recorded in the preceding 5 years
• 34% of registered patients aged 16+ had total cholesterol recorded within the past 5 years and 28% had HDL (high-density lipoprotein) recorded
• 12% of all registered patients in QRESEARCH practices had ethnicity recorded using the 1991 census codes, and 11% using the 2001 census codes, in the preceding 5 years.