1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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 .

13. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION www.aiehl.org