# Presentation: 737909

## Public Health: population-based approaches to improving health—information needs, resources, and uses

- Information Access in Health SciencesLIS 528/MEDED 570 Winter 2005
- Neil Rambo <nrambo@u.washington.edu>

## Slide 2

## What is public health?

- The science and art of protecting and improving community health through health education, promotion, research, and disease prevention strategies.

## What is public health?

- Knowledge and application of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary population-based methods of research, teaching, service, and practice involving various academic disciplines.

## Core disciplines

- Biostatistics
- Epidemiology
- Environmental health
- Behavioral sciences/health education
- Health services administration

## Other concentrations

- Occupational health and safety
- Maternal and child health
- Dental public health
- Public health program management/practice
- Preventive medicine
- Biomedical and laboratory practice
- Public health nursing
- Nutrition
- International public health

## Public health v. medicine

| Patient | Population | Individual |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intervention | Assessment, Policy Development, Assurance | Medical, surgical treatment |
| Process | System management | Patient management |
| Outcome | Healthy community | Healing |

## Who “does” public health?

- Academic institutions
- Schools of public health & other programs
- Practice settings
- Local, state, tribal, federal govt. agencies
- Health care organizations
- Private, not-for-profit organizations
- Large businesses

## Who “uses” public health?

- Those at risk for disease or injury
- New mothers
- International travelers
- Vulnerable populations
- Victims of disasters or exposure events

## Who “uses” public health?

- Those engaged in activities that may affect the exposure to risk of others
- Restaurants and other food handling businesses
- Anything affecting the quality of
- Air
- Water
- Food
- Shelter (some aspects)
- Health care services (access, cost, in addition to quality)
- ...

## The future of public health
		Institute of Medicine, National Academies 	Press, Washington DC, 1988

Updated in 2002 report: The future of the public’s health in the 21st century 

*The future of public health*
- 		Institute of Medicine, National Academies 	Press, Washington DC, 1988
- Updated in 2002 report: *The future of the public’s health in the 21st century*

## Core Functions

## Assessment

- Monitor health status to identify community health problems
- Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community

## Policy development

- Inform, educate, empower people about health issues
- Mobilize community partnerships to identify and solve health problems
- Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts

## Assurance

- Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable
- Assure a competent public health and personal health care workforce
- Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services

## Public health practice depends on partnerships

- Government entities
- Health care providers
- Hospitals & clinics
- HMOs & health care systems/plans
- Health professional associations
- Health advocacy organizations
- Community organizations & businesses

## Focus on workforce v. public

- Workforce
- Diverse segments & functions
- Lack of uniform education & training level
- Diverse _information needs_
- Public  patient/health education  consumer health

## Information Needs 

- Better tools and resources for contacting experts
- Timely updates on pertinent legislative issues and events
- Structured information (metadata) characterizing the contents of data sets
- Outcome measures and best practice resources

## Information Needs

- Better scheduling tools and calendar information
- Standard templates for often-used applications
- Knowledge-based information from external databases

## Public Health Informatics

- Application of information science and technology to the domain of public health
- Examples:
- Disease surveillance
- data collection, management, analysis, reporting
- GIS applications
- EpiQMS
- Communication
- O’Carroll’s Odwalla outbreak example

## Public Health Informatics

- _[Competencies](http://healthlinks.washington.edu/nwcphp/phi/comps/competencies.html)_

## Public Health Informatics

- UW Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics
- Funded by CDC Sep. 2005 for 3 years
- Proj. 1: surveillance system integration
- Proj. 2: knowledge management repository system
- Extrapolate what is knows about information needs in context
- Develop tools to build a public health knowledge management system

## Information needs
Resources
HealthLinks: Public Health Toolkit
Public Health Partners site
Uses
In class exercise

- Information needs
- Resources
- _[HealthLinks: Public Health Toolkit](http://healthlinks.washington.edu/index.jsp?id=3FC3829C-CB69-4FFB-9F22-F44530AF3567)_
- _[Public Health Partners site](http://phpartners.org/)_
- Uses
- In class exercise

## Slide 24