Agenda item - Annual Report of the Director of Public Health

6.1       Peter Wilkinson gave a presentation about the Annual Report of the Director of Public Health 2015- 2016 which is on the subject of social media. Historically, a version of this report has been published as a hard copy, but this year it can be found at this link: https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/health/public-health-brighton-hove/annual-report-director-public-health-201516-social-media The report takes the form of infographics, videos and links to relevant information.

6.2       Councillor Penn recognised that social media can be a very useful tool to allow people with mental health issues to express themselves and meet other people. However there are also dangers such as copycat behaviour. There needs to be a focus on helping people understand how to best use social media - e.g. privacy settings.

6.3       Fran McCabe wondered whether social media could be used to provide health information about young adults, a group that tends to be low users of most services, and hence harder to reach with public health messages. Peter Wilkinson stressed that we are in the early stages of collecting data from social media, and need to be cautious about interpretations. That said, information from younger people is likely to be more robust than from other demographic groups, because they are more frequent users of social media and consequently provide more data.

6.4       Graham Bartlett emphasised that parents are a key audience as they are generally not aware of the benefits and problems of social media. He welcomed the format of the annual report which would be of great interest to the Local Safeguarding Children Board.

6.5       Cllr Ken Norman stressed the need to be cautious about social media, although its growth was inevitable. The Chair agreed that we needed to be ready for the changes it would bring, and thanked Peter Wilkinson for his presentation.