Data and research

Health and wellbeing data and research relating to school age children.

These resources may help if you're completing one of our healthy schools awards.

Why data and research are important

Health and wellbeing data and research can help you:

  • work out the main health and wellbeing issues affecting your pupils and the school community
  • shape your school improvement plan
  • spot a growing or new health issue
  • make decisions on which Healthy Schools awards you should focus on
  • design any health interventions for your pupils

Where the data comes from

Public Health Bristol gather a wide range of health and wellbeing data for the city's population from external sources, for example, from sexual health clinics. They also do their own research.

Within Public Health, we have an in-house team of data analysts called the Public Health Knowledge Service. We:

Data available to schools

We have a range of data we can share with your school or setting.

School Community Health Profiles

The profile is specific to your school. It includes data about people living in:

  • your school's catchment area
  • the school's surrounding community
  • the postcodes of your pupils, where data is available

The profile gives health and wellbeing data from birth through to childhood, adulthood and death, for example:

  • obesity rates
  • domestic abuse figures
  • smoking rates

To get a profile, email us at healthy.schools@bristol.gov.uk. We'll talk you through the pack and come up with suggestions on how you can tackle some of the issues affecting your school community.

The Pupil Voice survey

The Pupil Voice survey gives a detailed insight into the behaviours, attitudes and concerns of young people. It also assesses the success of projects and initiatives that have already been commissioned.

All primary and secondary schools in the city are invited to take part in the survey.

The survey asks questions across a broad range of topics relating to health and wellbeing. The style of questions and topics are different according to age group.

The  pdf Bristol Pupil Voice report 2022 (2.95 MB) gives a selection of findings from the survey that was run in Bristol during the 2021-2022 academic year. In 2021-2022, more than:

  • 4,500 pupils from more than 30 primary, Special and secondary schools in the city responded
  • 20% of schools in the city participated in the survey in 2021/22. Participation rates were highest amongst mainstream secondary schools where approximately 45% were involved
  • 18% of all pupils in the focus year groups (4, 6, 8 and 10) in Bristol mainstream state primary and secondary schools participated

The survey responses are an important data source for the analyses of health needs of children and young people in Bristol schools. This is in relation to a wide range of known, and emerging, issues affecting them. 

Where appropriate, the report compares data from:

  • previous years of the survey
  • a national dataset, put together from similar surveys done by the same provider

This knowledge helps Public Health Bristol design services to address the heath needs of young people in Bristol.

The Healthy Schools team use the data with schools to help them better understand the health needs of their pupils, staff and families locally. 

This helps Healthy Schools and school settings decide what changes, improvements or systems to put in place. This typically uses the Healthy Schools award scheme as the basis for these improvements.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) chapters

JSNA chapters bring together all the relevant current data we have on local health and wellbeing needs.

The JSNA chapters on children and young people's health include:

  • healthy weight children and young people
  • emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people 
  • childhood epilepsy 
  • children's social communication and interaction needs
  • young people and substance misuse

Get more support and advice

If you have any questions about research and data, and how it can help your school setting, email us at healthy.schools@bristol.gov.uk.

We may have other data that we can give you on request. Our analysts may also be able to generate data to support specific projects you're running.