The Information and Intelligence (I&I) Special Interest Group is for public health professionals, including both practitioners and researchers, who are interested in supporting and improving the use of information and intelligence. Participation is welcome from all fields of public health whether in local government, the NHS, social care, national bodies such as DHSC and PHE, or academia.
Aims
The aims of the group are to promote and protect health and wellbeing through the effective use of information and intelligence, including data sources and analytical methods.
We aim to provide a focus for members with expertise and/or professional interest in the interconnected fields of public health intelligence, analysis/statistics/data science, and information governance to develop new initiatives, share good practice, and influence national and local stakeholders.
The group collaborates with relevant groups outside the Faculty such as the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH), Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA), Faculty of Clinical Informatics (FCI) and Health Statistics User Group (HSUG). Internally it has close links with the Public Health Ethics Special Interest Group on the subject of data ethics and information governance.
Activities
The group active is active in:
- Contributing to public consultations and policy discussions relevant to public health information, working with other interested organisations.
- Working with others to push for improvements in information governance processes in the health sector, especially better access to patient-based data for public health and bona fide research purposes.
Further development is intended as resources allow, focussing on the following areas:
Focus 1: Capability
- Promote standards and resourcing of PH analytical capability by identifying and sharing existing examples of good practice and models of local PH I&I operation.
- Promote collaboration between organisations to make effective use of resources, share skills and innovate.
- Contribute to initiatives on relevant professional training and standards, e.g. health analyst apprenticeships.
- Encourage professional development of PH I&I practitioners, promoting networking and sharing of experience, and circulating information of interest.
Focus 2: Data
- Increase the integration of PH and health information and analysis into wider local and national policy and planning agendas (housing, transport, employment, taxation…).
- Promote the contribution of non-health data and analytical methods to promoting health, wellbeing, equity and sustainability (health economics, modelling/forecasting, data linkage…).
- Influencing decision-makers, government data providers and others to promote the collection of more and better data relevant to PH, wellbeing, equity and sustainability in health and other sectors (responding to consultations and proposals and initiating new proposals).
- Improve the availability of data for PH analysis and to inform policy and planning at all levels (influencing on data sharing, analytical agendas, enabling technologies).
Contact
The group reports to the Faculty’s Academic and Research Committee and the SIG's chair and main contact is Myer Glickman: myer.glickman@ons.gov.uk.
Join the Public Health Information and Intelligence SIG
FPH members can join this SIG by logging into their FPH members’ portal account, selecting the ‘Committees/SIGs’ button and choosing the correct SIG. You will then be asked to provide a few details, following which your application will be automatically approved. Further details on FPH membership are available here.
