Key Area 1: Surveillance and assessment of the population's health and wellbeing
This area of practice focuses on the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the population's health, including managing, analysing, interpreting, and communicating information that relates to the determinants and status of health and wellbeing. Integral to this is the assessment of population needs and its relationship to effective actions.
Learning experiences
By the end of phase 1 trainees will be expected to: assess and describe the health status and determinants of health of a defined population by measuring, analysing and interpreting appropriate routine and ad hoc mortality, morbidity data, and subjective health status.
By the end of phase 2 trainees will be expected to have assessed the status, health needs and determinants of health of a (sub) population systematically for a known reason. This will demonstrate use of appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods, including comparison over time, place and person. It will also demonstrate the ability to accurately describe and clearly communicate findings to others and translate surveillance results and assessment into appropriate recommendations for action.
By the end of phase 3 trainees will be expected to demonstrate that action has taken place as a result of their assessment of health status and needs. If no action has occurred then they will understand why and have developed alternative strategies. Trainees will have been assessing health status throughout their training and will have accumulated evidence that they are proficient in the use of a broad range of types of health data in a range of settings.
Potential vehicles for the demonstration of this competence area include:
- Gathering, analysis and presentation of data for a health report
- Data set manipulation and analysis
- Development, administration and analysis of questionnaires
- Board reports
- Health needs assessment
- Geographic mapping of health indicators
Potential settings for the demonstration of this competence area:
By the end of training trainees will be expected to have worked with the following types of health data:
- mortality,
- morbidity,
- cancer registry,
- local, national and international communicable disease notifications
- and laboratory data,
- demographic,
- hospital episode statistics
- and health survey.
They will be expected to have done this in a setting where they can demonstrate the contribution made to decision making at a board / senior management level within a health or partner organisation.
They will need to have analysed data by:
- geographical levels,
- by sub-populations,
- by time and
- by risk factors.
Links to Knowledge and Skills Framework
- IK2: Information collection and analysis
- C6: Equality and Diversity
Knowledge Base
Populations; collection of routine and ad hoc data; demography; life-tables; population projections; population structure and fertility, mortality and migration; the significance of demographic changes for the health of the population and its need for health and related services.
Sources of routine mortality and morbidity data, including primary care data, collection and publication at international, national, regional and district levels; biases and artefacts in population data; methods of classifying health and disease, appreciation of the importance of consistency in definitions and (public health) language. Methods used to measure health status; notification and registration systems; data linkage within and across datasets.
Use of information for health service planning and evaluation; specification and uses of information systems; common measures of health service provision and usage; the uses of mathematical modelling techniques in health service planning; indices of needs for and outcome of services; the strengths, uses, interpretation and limitations of routine health information; use of information technology in the processing and analysis of health services information and in support of the provision of health care.