This report provides us with a very important picture of the trends in the health behaviours of school-aged children. It describes the self-reported health status for children in Ireland over time in relation to key indicators: health behaviours (eg smoking, alcohol, dieting fruit consumption, tooth brushing), health outcomes (eg feeling low, injuries, life satisfaction) and contexts of children’s lives (family, school, peers and locality).

The various surveys that have taken place every four years from 1998 to 2014 mean that policymakers and researchers have access to key data to inform policy and service development. The data is also a key factor in designing policy for the prevention of poor health behaviours and for the promotion of healthy ones.

This Trends Report helps policy-makers to future-proof the direction of national population health policy. The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Ireland study has been gathering and analysing data from school-aged children aged between 10 and 17 years over a period of 16 years. To date HBSC Ireland has collected data from 49,268 school-aged children. The most recent data collection occurred in 2014; it was the 5th national survey cycle of the study. The report is divided into three sections: health behaviours, health outcomes and contexts of children’s lives.