HealthLINETexas Woman’s University T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences January 17, 2013

Public Health Information on the Web

Agenda

Overview - What is public health?Health promotion and educationEvidence-based practiceStatistics and Data SetsKeeping UpExercises

What is Public Health?

MISSION: improve/promote physical and mental healthprevent disease, injury and disability

http://www.whatispublichealth.org (Association of Schools of Public Health)

VISION: Healthy People in Healthy Communities

What is Public Health?

20th Century’s Ten Great Public Health Achievements in the U.S.

• Vaccination• Motor vehicle safety• Control of infectious diseases• Safer workplaces• Safer and healthier foods• Family planning• Fluoridation of drinking water• Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard• Healthier mothers and babies• Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease

and stroke

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce

• Collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health science libraries.

• Mission: Helping the public health workforce find and use information effectively to improve and protect the public’s health.

http://phpartners.org/

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) American Public Health Association (APHA) Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Medical Library Association (MLA) National Agricultural Library National Association of County and City Health Officials

(NACCHO) National Association of Local Boards of Health (NALBOH) National Library of Medicine (NLM) National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) Public Health Foundation (PHF) Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE)

http://phpartners.org/

Core Functions and Essential Services

3 core functions

10 essential serviceshttp://www.health.gov/phfunctions/public.htm

Health Promotion & Education

Resources for health educators and health promotion specialists.

Putting good information in the hands of those who need it.

An informed public is a healthy public.

Health Promotion & Education

MedlinePlushttp://www.medlineplus.gov Health Topics

Frequently Requested TopicsMultiple Languages (now 49!) Health and WellnessDemographic GroupsHealth News

Drugs & SupplementsVideos & Cool Tools

Health Promotion and Education

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)http://www.ahrq.gov Sections useful for health educators and Public Health

Preparedness

American Public Health Association (APHA)“Healthy You”

http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/ Free health fact sheets on a variety of topics

Get Ready Campaign and National PublicHealth Week

Health Promotion & Education• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

▫ http://www.cdc.gov▫ A – Z Index▫ For Specific Groups: State, Tribal, Local & Territorial Public

Health Professionals Gateway ▫ New Health Literacy website:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy

• Food and Drug Administration (FDA)▫ http://www.fda.gov▫ A to Z Subject Index▫ FDA For You: For Consumers & Patients, For Health

Professionals

Health Promotion & Education

Healthy Roads MediaHealth information in many languages and

multiple formatshttp://www.healthyroadsmedia.org

Refugee Health Information Network (RHIN) Health and cultural information for refugees

and health providers http://www.rhin.org/

Exercises Part 1

Evidence-Based Practice

Evidence-Based Practice

Collection of scientific evidence to support decisions in public health.

Why is it important?Allocation of resourcesReturn on investment

For every $1 spent on smoking cessation programs, you save $1.50 in reduction of health care costs

Example: “City Initiative Brings Fresh Produce to Houston’s ‘Food Deserts’”

Evidence-Based Public Health

“the development, implementation, and evaluation of effective programs and policies in public health through application of principles of scientific reasoning, including systematic uses of data and information systems, and appropriate use of behavioral science theory and program planning models.”

Source: Brownson, Ross C., Elizabeth A. Baker, Terry L. Leet, and Kathleen N. Gillespie, Editors. Evidence-Based Public Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

PHPartners.org

Literature and GuidelinesPubMed

More than 20 million citations for biomedical articleshttp://pubmed.gov/

“Research is Just a Click Away…”Individual Journal TitlesNewslettersAgency Reports

Evidence-Based Public Health

• Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries ▫ http://phpartners.org/hp2020/index.html

• Guide to Community Preventive Services▫ Summaries of population-based interventions▫ CDC and U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services▫ http://thecommunityguide.org

Evidence-Based Public Health

• NACCHO Model Practices Database▫ National Association of County & City Health

Officials▫ http://www.naccho.org/topics/modelpractices

/database/

• National Guideline Clearinghouse (AHRQ)• Guidelines with recommendations,

strategies, etc.• http://www.guideline.gov/

Exercises, Part 2

Break!!

Statistics & Data Sets

• Caveat: statistics are collected to meet the needs of the collector!

• Organizational perspective and bias • Biases can determine what data are collected,

how they are collected and outcomes that are reported• Data: raw numbers; must be processed to be of practical

use• Statistics: analyzed raw data in a meaningful format

To count … or not to count

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

--Albert Einstein

Key Features of Health Statistics

• Population based• Measure a wide range of health indicators• Often collected and analyzed over a period of

time• Include different types of data

▫ Vital (birth, death, marriage, divorce)▫ Morbidity & mortality▫ Use and cost of health care▫ Epidemiology

How is the data gathered?

Uses of Data and Statistics

Measure wide range of health indicators

Assess costs of health care

Identify needed prevention targets for outcomes (e.g. Healthy People 2020)

Evaluate effectiveness of public health programs

Health Data Tools & Statistics

PHPartners.orgGateway to a wealth of statistics sites and data

sets

CDC Data and StatisticsCDC is the best in the world for data & statisticsNational Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)http://www.cdc.gov/DataStatistics/ http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Health Data Tools & StatisticsFastStats A – Z

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/ Quick access to topics relevant to public healthA to Z listing

BRFSS (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System) http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/ World’s largest telephone survey (both landlines

and cell phones) Tracks health risks in the U.S.

WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting Systems)http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars Information on fatal and non-fatal injuries

Health Data Tools & Statistics

State Health Facts Online (Kaiser Family Foundation)http://www.statehealthfacts.orgAllows comparison on a state level

County Health Rankingshttp://www.countyhealthrankings.orgProvides snapshot of a county’s overall

health

Exercises, Part 3

Keeping Up and Staying Informed

Staying informed is a professional responsibility.

Being informed is important at every level.

Efficient strategies provide the most value (relevant items) while expending the least amount of time.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed!

Why is it important?Ever-increasing amounts of informationNew legislation New guidelinesFunding

StrategiesEmail lists and RSS feeds Tables of contents of journalsAutomatic update searches (e.g. My NCBI)Social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs)Joining or following organizations (APHA,

NACCHO, SOPHE)Not all information is available electronically

Thank you!

Cheryl Rowan, Consumer Health CoordinatorNational Network of Libraries of Medicine, South

Central Region cheryl.rowan@exch.library.tmc.edu713-799-7880http://nnlm.nih.gov/scr

South Central Region

Closing thoughts….

“Clean water and health care and school and food and tin roofs and cement floors, all of

these things should constitute a set of basics that people must have as birthrights.”

~Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains,

founder, Partners in Health