Development of the Health Protection Profiles

Indicator Selection and Development

In 2007 the HPA commissioned Ipsos Mori to carry out a poll on what health protection issues were the most important to the public and their awareness of the HPA. This poll showed that the public were interested in or concerned about:

• healthcare associated infections,
• pollution,
• bird flu/avian flu,
• infectious diseases,
• STIs,
• childhood diseases,
• flooding

These themes were used as our starting point.

In October 2008 a workshop was held in London. Members of the public, healthcare professionals from various organisations and members of staff from across the HPA were invited. In the morning brief background talks were given on each of the themes, highlighteing the available information along with its strengths and weaknesses. In the afternoon there were small group discussions to identify which data were the most important and useful. This resulted in a draft list of indicators, which were then distributed to the relevant programme boards within the HPA.

Following suggestions on feasibility and robustness the indicator list was amended and members of Primary Care Tursts and Local Authorities were asked to rank which of the indicators were most useful to them. This resulted in the first suite of indicators.

The data for the indicators were collected from different departments within the HPA and some external partners such as the South West Public Health Observatory. 

Presentation of Indicators

To identify an appropriate delivery solution a questionnaire evaluating different health information websites was designed. Members of the public were invited to complete the questionnaire. The results showed that InstantAtlas^TM was the only product which users could easily access as it did not require additional software to be downloaded. This fact along with other factors such as cost and functionality lead to InstantAtlas^TM being selected.

A focus group with members of the public led by the HPA's public engagement team was held in November 2009. The group helped develop the look of the interactive maps and structure for the Health Protection Profile web pages.

Future Developments

The Health Protection Profiles will continue to evolve and develop in order to best meet the needs of its users. If you have any suggestions for indicators or improving these pages please let us know by emailing: HealthProtectionProfiles@hpa.org.uk