Public health: resource guide

West Midlands Library Services Development Unit

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On the Public Health White Paper

The public health white paper, Choosing Health: making healthier choices easier http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidanceArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4094550&chk=aN5Cor, sets out the key principles for supporting the public to make more healthier and informed choices in regards to their health.  The Chief Medical Officer’s public health white paper web page http://www.dh.gov.uk/AboutUs/HeadsOfProfession/ChiefMedicalOfficer/CMOArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4081803&chk=3O5ZET gives direct access to supporting resources on:

• Sexual health

• Tobacco and smoking

• Food and health action plan

• Food in schools

• 5 a day

• Local exercise action pilots (LEAP)

• Activity co-ordination team (ACT)

• Children and mental health

• Mental health and social exclusion

• Ethnic minorities

• Mental health

Other relevant resources available on the Department of Health website under the category of Health and Social Care Topics http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/HealthAndSocialCareTopics/fs/en include:

• Health inequalities

• Healthy living

• Chlamydia

• Alcohol misuse

As part of the national consultation on the public health white Paper, the government has appointed task groups to lead on eight key themes (see below).  The Health Development Agency (HDA) supported the task groups, which met during April-May 2004, with a series of briefing papers on http://www.hda-online.org.uk/html/improving/choosinghealth.html

• Better health for children and young people

• Consumers and markets

• Focusing on delivery

• Leisure

• Maximising the NHS contribution − NHS as a whole

• Maximising the NHS contribution − primary care

• Working for health/opportunities in employment

• Working with and for communities

Health and well-being of the population is identified as one of the national priority areas.  National targets in relation to public health for 2003/04 to 2005/06 can be found in the following 2 planning framework documents:

• Improvement, Expansion and Reform: the Next 3 Years: Priorities and Planning Framework 2003-2006

• National Standards, Local Action: Health and social Care Standards and Planning Framework 2005/06-2007/08

 Both are accessible from http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/OrganisationPolicy/FinanceAndPlanning/PlanningFramework/fs/en

Public Health Organisations

Association of Public Health Observatories http://www.apho.org.uk/apho/ plays the role of facilitating collaborative working of the ten Public Health Observatories (PHOs) in England and Wales.  This website serves as a portal providing access to all the websites of the PHOs.

Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom http://www.fphm.org.uk/ is a joint Faculty of the three Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom (London, Edinburgh and Glasgow) and provides independent advice on the public's health and aims to maintain high standards of professional competence and practice.

The Royal Institute of Public Health http://www.riphh.org.uk/ is an independent organisation promoting public health and hygiene through education, training, information and quality testing.

Public Health Resources

Health Equity Audit  http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidanceArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4084138&chk=sOoexw  is a requirement set out in the Planning and Priorities Framework 2003-2006 and will inform the implementation of local delivery plans, community strategies and local neighbourhood renewal strategies. 

Health Impact Assessment Gateway http://www.hiagateway.org.uk/ is developed by the HDA to provide all people working in Health Impact Assessment (HIA) a single place to source HIA related information. Major features of the site include:

• an introduction for beginners

• answers to the what, why, who and how of HIA

• copies of HIA resources, including completed HIAs, toolkits and evidence

• contact details of people working in HIA in your region

Health Poverty Index (HPI) http://www.hpi.org.uk/ is a Department of Health sponsored project aimed at aiding the visualisation of health inequalities for different groups across England. This includes not only differences in health but also the unequal distribution of factors implicated in the production of such differences.

Public Health electronic Library (PHeL) http://www.phel.gov.uk/ is a specialist virtual library under the National Library for Health (NLH) developed by the Health Development Agency (HDA).  It provides access to a collection of public health policy initiatives, organisations, public health agencies, evidence-based public health tools, and other relevant electronic resources.

The Public Health Information Thesaurus http://www.phthesaurus.org.uk/ is used as the indexing language for the HDA’s Health Promis and Evidence Base, and the PHeL.  The Thesaurus was originally based on the Multilingual European Thesaurus on Health Promotion, an ongoing European Commission project to standardize terms used in the field of health promotion across the European.

Evidence-based Practice for Public Health http://library.umassmed.edu/ebpph/ is produced by the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  It aims to identify any existing evidence-based projects in public health and assess their effectiveness. The outcomes of the project will be:

• An Evidence-based Public Health website;

• An electronic publication or database based on the preferred models(s);

• A training program for public health practitioners introducing them to evidence-based public health practice and literature retrieval methods

The Public Health Image Library (PHIL) http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/default.asp provides a searchable collection of images relevant to public health, created by a working group at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  It is aimed at anyone with an interest in public health and is organised into hierarchical categories of people, places, and science and is presented as single images, image sets and multimedia files.

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This page was last updated on: 19 September 2005