Title

Smoking at initial assessment and birth, by health board providing the service

Last update

July 2024 July 2024

Next update

July 2025 (provisional)

Publishing organisation

Welsh Government

Source 1

Maternity Indicators data set

Contact email

stats.healthinfo@gov.wales

Lowest level of geographical disaggregation

Local health boards

Geographical coverage

Local health boards

Languages covered

English and Welsh

Data licensing

You may use and re-use this data free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government License - see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

General description

Smoking at initial assessment:
More than 90% of records had valid data for the smoking status at initial assessment data item, across all health boards, in all years. However, statistics on smoking at initial assessment and birth are limited by the way in which the data is collected. If CO monitoring is not available, data reliability is dependent on the mother self-reporting accurate information. CO monitoring has largely been suspended since the COVID-19 pandemic began, so data for 2020 to 2023 is mainly self-reported.
E-Cigarette use should not be recorded in this data item and would not be detected by a CO monitor; however, in practice some mothers may self-report as a smoker if they use e-cigarettes and be incorrectly recorded as a smoker. Likewise, some mothers who do smoke may self-report as a non-smoker and be incorrectly recorded as a non-smoker.

Smoking at birth:
In 2021, 82% of records had valid data recorded at the Wales level. This was largely due to Hywel Dda health board not supplying any smoking at birth data, while there was only 68% complete data for Cwm Taf Morgannwg. There were also low levels of completeness in 2020 for Hywel Dda (30%), Cwm Taf Morgannwg (70%) and Powys (76%). However, in all years prior to 2020, more than 90% of records had valid data for smoking status at birth, across nearly all health boards.

Full details of every data item available on both the Maternity Indicators dataset and National Community Child Health Database are available through the NWIS Data Dictionary: http://www.datadictionary.wales.nhs.uk/#!WordDocuments/datasetstructure20.htm

From 1st April 2019 health service provision for residents of Bridgend local authority moved from Abertawe Bro Morgannwg to Cwm Taf. For more information see the joint statement from Cwm Taf and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Boards (see weblinks). The health board names have changed with Cwm Taf University Health Board becoming Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board becoming Swansea Bay University Health Board.
Data for Abertawe Bro Morgannwg and Cwm Taf are available for previous years in this table by selecting the tick boxes in the Area drop-down box.

Frequency of publication

Annual

Data reference periods

2016-2023

Weblinks

https://gov.wales/maternity-and-birth-statistics
https://cwmtaf.wales/welsh-government-announce-decision-on-bridgend-boundary-change/
https://gov.wales/written-statement-health-board-boundary-bridgend-associated-planning

Statistical quality

More detailed information on the sources of data and analyses in this statistical release are provided in the quality report: https://gov.wales/maternity-and-birth-statistics-quality-report

Keywords

maternity; mothers smoking; smoking at birth

Name

HLTH1221