• In 2021, 67 out of a 100 Islanders viewed their health as good or very good, down from 81 out of a 100 in 2016
• Life expectancy is higher than the UK, at around 81 years for males and 85 years for females
• Covid-19 had much less of an impact than in England, with a significantly lower rate of avoidable death from SARS-CoV-2 in Jersey (146/100,000) than England (257/100,000)
• Smoking rates are relatively low (13%, comparable to the UK’s 14%), adult physical activity rates are high (79% of adults say they are active compared with 66% in the UK), and obesity rates in adults and children are slightly lower than the UK
• Immunisation rates are high, especially for children under the age of five
• Smoking kills up to half of all smokers. 29% of Islanders working in manual, routine, semi-routine or service jobs smoke, compared with just 7% of senior managers
• Quality of diet is closely linked to relative wealth. For example, children in reception and in Year 6 who attend non-fee-paying schools are much more likely to be overweight or obese than children attending fee-paying schools. In addition, the quality of diet among people living in social housing or non-qualified rental accommodation is much poorer than other Islanders
• Jersey’s alcohol consumption remains among the highest in Europe and is a big driver of social issues such domestic violence and crime
• Many Islanders suffer from poor mental health and wellbeing, in particular children and young people, who report very high levels of anxiety and self-harm

• Jersey has a population of 103,267
• St Helier, (the largest parish), had 35,822 people and St Mary (the smallest) had 1,818 people. The population had increased by 5,410 since 2011. Net inward migration between 2011-2021 accounted for 3,300 of the 5,410 increase. (The equivalent figure was 6,800 in the period 2001-2011). 52,264 (51%) of the Jersey population were female and 51,003 (49%) were male
• By birth, the majority of the population were born either in Jersey (51,274, 50%) or the British Isles (29,598, 29%). 8,280 (8%) were born in Portugal or Madeira and 2,808, (3%) in Poland and the remainder (11,289, 11%) were born in Ireland, France, another European country or the rest of the world
• Self-reported ethnicity shows a small but significant number of people who weren’t born in Portugal or Madeira (1,500) who identify as Portuguese or Madeiran and around 300 people born outside of Poland who identify as Polish
• Data on 1^st language spoken was not available at the time of writing. In common with other developed nations, Jersey has an aging population: the largest population group was people aged 50-59 (16,637, 16%)
• The dependency ratio for Jersey (the ratio of those outside of working age to those of working age) was 52% in 2021; this has increased from 46% in 2011 and is likely to increase further as middle aged-Islanders age and retire

We have recently launched our Public Health Strategy for Jersey.
The Strategy explores our six strategic priorities of understand, protect, improve, work together, innovate, sustain

Our Public Health Strategy can be found here.

The Jersey and Guernsey Public Health Alliance was launched on 28^th March 2023. Since launching this exciting initiative, both jurisdictions have worked together on a number of topics including:

• Mental health strategy;
• Food and nutrition/healthy weight strategy;
• Plans for the management of individual infectious diseases
• Environmental hazards, particularly PFAS and glyphosates;

We are currently working on a joint pandemic virus plan, which will help inform our strategy if another pandemic similar to COVID-19 comes to our shores.

Our joint work means that we can save time, share expertise, and offer support. Typically this topic specific joint work includes:

• Sharing initial policy documents, plans and strategies to save time (but still allowing for island-specific recommendations);
• Organising one set of meetings, hosted by one island to save time and avoid duplication;
• Joint commissioning of external reports to reduce cost and improve quality (we have already jointly commissioned a review of our nuclear risk);
• Joint advocacy to other jurisdictions and organisations to facilitate external expertise such and access to UK committees;
• Comparative analysis of data to gauge the size of public health problems and to monitor progress by comparative benchmarking – the aim is to develop a pan-islands public health outcomes framework so we can analyse our population-based health outcomes in an island context;

The joint working and collaboration that we have through the Alliance is highly valued by both Public Health Teams and is helping us deliver very larger mandates of work in the most effective and cost-effective way we can.