3.14 Data Dissemination
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Expected time: 1.5 hours
Preparing Data for Dissemination
One of the most important steps in public health surveillance is the distribution or dissemination of relevant findings to appropriate audiences in a timely manner.
Possible audiences include partners, stakeholders, health-care providers, policy-makers and the public. It is important to remember who your target audiences are when preparing data for dissemination.
- What message or messages do you want to convey?
- What do your target audiences need to know?
- What data presentation format will be best understood?
Possible responses:
- Identifying congenital anomalies trends and geographic-specific rates
- Planning, implementing and assisting with the evaluation of interventions or screening
- Educating policy-makers, government officials and the public
- Educating clinical/public health practitioners, nongovernmental organizations and the public
- Identifying children with special needs and referring them to services
Possible responses:
- Analyses and interpretation of public health surveillance results
- Recommendations for prevention activities stemming from the results
- Suggestions for how the public health professionals and health-care providers can become involved
Possible responses:
- Ways to improve reporting
- Comparison of rates between geographic areas or populations, or participating institutions if the programme is hospital-based
- Detailed information related to programme progress in participating hospitals and health-care systems
- Overall programme progress
Other important points to keep in mind when creating an output for surveillance data are the timeline for dissemination, the usefulness of disseminated information, and the channel for data dissemination. It is important to remember the audiences to which these reports are addressed, and reports should be tailored accordingly. Examples of channels are written reports, the Internet, media, or a combination of these.
Activity 3.8
Ask participants to refer to Activity 3.8 in the Participant WorkbookCdc-pdf. Divide participants into small groups. Assign a target audience (groups 1–4 below) to each group.
Target Audience
- Group 1: Nongovernmental organization
- Group 2: Clinic/public health practitioners
- Group 3: General public
- Group 4: Policy-makers
After groups have had enough time to complete the activity, discuss results aloud as a larger group.
Activity 3.9
Ask participants to refer to Activity 3.9 in the Participant WorkbookCdc-pdf. Divide participants into small groups. Assign a target audience (groups 1–4 below) to each group.
You are a group of paediatricians working in a large maternity facility in your country. You are seeing many babies (see Table 3.4) with congenital anomalies being born in the facility and the group thinks it would be good to provide information to your target audience (assigned), to interest them in supporting a surveillance programme. In the letter, you should include a description of how the data will be organized, what data will be collected and how it will be presented to make the case to your target audience.
Target Audience
- Groups 1 and 2: Ministry of Health (government agency)
- Groups 3 and 4: Clinic/public health practitioners (from other maternity facilities within the country)
| Prevalence of anomalies per 10 000 live births | |||||||||||||
| Ethnic group 1 | Ethnic group 2 | Ethnic group 3 | |||||||||||
| Cleft lip | 243 (10.59) | 136 (6.19) | 91 (11.28) | ||||||||||
| Spina bifida | 76 (3.31) | 53 (2.41) | 35 (4.34) | ||||||||||
| Anencephaly | 40 (1.74) | 30 (1.37) | 21 (2.60) | ||||||||||
| Encephalocele | 19 (0.83) | 31 (1.41) | 9 (1.12) | ||||||||||
After groups have had enough time to complete the activity, discuss results aloud as a larger group.