HISI Conference , 19 November 2008 Sharing public health information Kevin P Balanda, IPH Public health information: Usually aggregated Needed across a number of different levels (individual, household, community, societal) Different types of information

Institute of Public Health in Ireland All-Ireland body: North-South co-operation Inequalities in health Broad view of health and its determinants Three work strands: Capacity building Policy support Information and intelligence - INIsPHO 2008/2009 – 10 year anniversary Before I start I’ll just say a few words about the IPH

Sharing public health information How do we ensure that Policy makers / clinicians / practitioners / others get information when they need it? The experience of policy makers and practitioners is considered? People also get the other contextual information they need? Different types of information resources in the “grey literature” - policies and strategies, reports, data (qualitative and quantitative), project details, etc - tend to be distributed across different websites and organisations. AIeHL aims to make it easier for people to bring together the information they want

AIeHL – how it works The AIeHL is a network of interoperable websites All member websites contribute relevant resources No repository, only a central metadata cache XML feeds to the metadata cache AIeHL website searches that central metadata cache To retrieve a resource, visitor is directed to the member website that contributed it The AIeHL is managed, on behalf of its members, by the all-Ireland population health observatory (INIsPHO@IPH)

AIeHL - management AIeHL Advisory Group AIeHL Members Working Group Working towards meeting standards of the Health Sciences Libraries Group (HSLG) Formal participation in development of a number of international encoding schemes Library Association of Ireland

Some current members Diverse membership: Community Development and Health Network (CDHN NI) HSE Irish Health Publications Archive (HSE) Healthdata (HSE) IPH eLibrary (IPH) National Documentation Centre on Drug Use (HRB) Wellnet (IfH, EHSSB)

Note: Thematic collections - for easy access and another level of participation–(eg CAWT Inequalties Database) Latest Resources and RSS feeds Most Popular Resources – webstats (google analytics and other details of resources accessed) Download an installer onto you desktop (HSE intranet and internet sits offers this)

You can search by keywords or terms taken from structured thesauri (the Public Health Language (PHL) which was recently mapped to SNOMED CT). Can restrict search to particular creators, member websites, type of resources, dates

The relevant resources of different types are presented separately together Metadata for a particular resources (their subject, creator, etc) can be displayed If you wish to view a resource you are directed to the member website that contributed it.

Addressing technical issues Agreed core metadata standards: “Subject” - PHL mapped to SNOMED “Type” - PHRTES Agreed tagging of resources Modification to member websites XML feeds Metadata standards are consistent with those used in the National Public Health Library With wider adaptation of metadata standards and structured thesauri, the AIeHL will enable greater sharing of information to support better decision-making in public health

Addressing organisational issues More widely disseminate their resources Places their resources in a broader context Maintain “ownership” and “control” Increases resources available to their visitors It increases traffic to all member websites Democratic” - agreed rules / all benefit equally/ different levels of participation Addressing organisational barriers - “benefits“ for member websites From any member website, you can can simultaneously search all (or some of) the other member websites

Challenges ahead Opportunity to develop a rational approach: content / quality / library standards Management of growth (new members / use in two new research centres) Promoting awareness of the library Resources / funding .

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION www.aiehl.org