Public Health Scotland publish 10-year strategy with prevention at the forefront
/This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 28th January 2026
Public Health Scotland (PHS) has published its 10-year strategy, with a focus on improving average life expectancy by at least 1 year, and narrowing the life expectancy gap between the poorest 20% areas and the average - both by 2035.
At a time when healthy life expectancy has fallen to a ten-year low, the need for collective action is more urgent than ever before. The strategy is “a promise, not a list of aspirations,” PHS notes, and that "change is possible… We’ve improved and protected Scotland’s health before. We can do it again."
The strategy comes as the recently published Population Health Framework, Public Service Reform Strategy and Service Renewal Framework place emphasis on working in preventative ways - to stop problems before they start.
SCDC and its partners also recently set out the importance co-production, long-term investment and transparency play. We must ensure financial decision-making power is meaningfully shared with community and third sector organisations as equal partners.
This strategy has a crucial role in delivering on the ‘implementation gap’ around prevention and allowing us to together achieve not just a policy ambition, but a policy success.
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