Population Health Monitoring: Climbing the Information Pyramid

This timely volume presents an in-depth tour of population health monitoring―what it is, what it does, and why it has become increasingly important to health information systems across Europe. Introductory chapters ground readers in the structures of health information systems, and the main theoretical and conceptual models of population health monitoring. From there, contributors offer tools and guidelines for optimum monitoring, including best practices for gathering and contextualizing data and for disseminating findings, to benefit the people most affected by the information. And an extended example follows the step-by-step processes of population health monitoring through a study of health inequalities, from data collection to policy recommendations.

Included in the coverage:

·         Structuring health information: frameworks, models, and indicators

·         Analysis:contextualization of process and content

·         Knowledge translation: key concepts, terms, and activities

·         Health inequality monitoring: a practical application of population health monitoring

·         Relating population health monitoring to other types of health assessments

·         Population health monitoring: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

A robust guide with international implications for an emerging field, Population Health Monitoring is a salient reference for public health experts working in the field of health information as well as post-graduate public health students and public health policymakers.      

Marieke Verschuuren, MD, PhD, worked as a practicing physician, particularly in health care for the institutionalized elderly, before she started working as a researcher in 2002. Since earning her PhD in Health Technology Assessment in 2006, Dr. Verschuuren has been working in health information and public health monitoring and reporting, both at the national and at the international level. The interface of policy and research (evidence-informed policy-making) is her special interest. She has collaborated in and led various projects, among which are the European Public Health and Information System (EUPHIX) project and European Core Health Indicators and Monitoring (ECHIM) project, both co-funded by the European Commission, and the nationaalkompas.nl and volksgezondheidenzorg.info projects, both web-based public health information systems commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Health. Furthermore, Dr. Verschuuren has extensively collaborated with WHO Regional Office for Europe. 

Dr. Verschuuren has served as editor-in-chief of the European health report 2015 and coordinator of the European Health Information Initiative (EHII), a multi-stakeholder WHO network aimed at improving the evidence base for policy making in Europe. Currently, she is a member of the EHII Steering Group and preparing health information system assessments missions to Bulgaria and Moldova as a WHO consultant. Furthermore, she is senior advisor to the Dutch Public Health Status and Forecast 2018 that aims to inform Dutch national health policy. Dr. Verschuuren also is the founder of the EUPHA section on Public Health Monitoring and Reporting.

J.A.M. (Hans) van Oers, PhD, has been working at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) since 1998. Since 2012, Prof. Dr. van Oers has served as RIVM’s Chief Science Officer of System Assessment and Policy Support, and since 2004, he has been a professor in PublicHealth with Tranzo at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Previously, he was involved in the development of the World Health Organization's Global Health Observatory, an Internet-based information system to support public health policymakers worldwide. He also served as head of the department of Public Health Status and Forecasts, being responsible for the publication of the Dutch public health report every four years, a major building block for the development of the national health policy. 

Prof. Dr. van Oers is a member of the Dutch Health Council, is chairing the ZonMw-program committee on "healthy lifestyle and healthy environment," and is a member of the ZonMw-committee, "academic collaborative centers on public health." At the international level, he was a.o. project leader of the EU-funded project EUPHIX (European Public Health Information System) and co-chair of the WHO-EURO working group on health information strategy. He is strongly involved in the WHO/RIVM-funded European Health Information Initiative, a project to improve disclosure and dissemination of information, knowledge, and expertise on health monitoring and health reporting.