21/05/2026
In 2025 we supported our Director of Public Health research “what matters to me” with our nursery age children.
We welcome the commitment contained in the report below to ensure our children’s voices are at the core of service planning
One in five children under five in Highland are living in poverty and that figure has not improved since 2010.
Today we are publishing our Director of Public Health Annual Report 2025: A Strong Start: health and wellbeing in the early years.
It is the first annual report from Jennifer Davies, NHS Highland's Director of Public Health, and it takes an honest look at the health and wellbeing of young children across our region.
The numbers tell part of the story, of the 12,834 children aged under five in NHS Highland in 2024, 21.9% live in relative poverty. One in three live in a remote or rural area. Around half live in the parts of Scotland with the most limited access to services. The rate of tooth decay in five-year-olds in our most deprived communities is nearly three times that in the least deprived.
But the report also draws on the voices of more than 170 children and parents gathered using play-based methods with children as young as two. Their words are some of the most powerful evidence in the report.
It calls for collective action in five areas:
⭐ Invest early in prevention
⭐ Tackle the drivers of poverty
⭐ Create child-friendly places
⭐ Strengthen universal services
⭐ Ensure equity and children's rights
Read the full report via the link in the comments below.
