Wednesday 28 January 2009

Health Profile of England - highlights CKD as a public health issue

Health Profile England collates a wealth of public health information and is a key source document. The latest edition, published on 27 January 2008, notes that there is under ascertainment of CKD in primary care in England. It cites the Information Centre's Quality and Outcomes Framework data and the expected prevalence figures published by the East Midlands Public Health Observatory to illustrate the gap.

In 2009 the Health Survey England will for the first time contain kidney disease parameters including history of kidney disease, family history, serum creatinine for estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR) and urinary albumin creatinine ratio. This will give us a better picture of CKD in the community than we have had previously and will increase the visibility of CKD as a public health issue.

Health Profile England is therefore intending to include kidney disease and hypertension in their next and subsequent reports.