[Re: https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/lancet-global-health-metrics-people-and... ]
Neil accurately points to the problem of a lack of good metrics to measure health information distribution and impact. He mentions, "My initial thought is to ensure we include process indicators and not just outcome indicators."
However, while it may be true that process indicators have a relevance in many areas of health care, they are clearly insufficient for health information. The usual process indicators that we collect - for example, the number of copies of books distributed, or the numbers of hits on a website page, etc. - don't tell us anything about the effect of the information on the health of the recipient. The fact that 10,000 copies of a text on diabetes were distributed to a given population is irrelevant unless the diabetes incidence in that population actually goes down.
Impact and outcome indicators are the only way to judge the value of a given information initiative, and the only way to distinguish between different information approaches - to tell us which information strategy or product works best. These are largely absent at present. They will be needed when the time comes to formulate the successors to the SDGs after 2030, if we want to have goals and targets related to access to health information.
Best,
Chris
Chris Zielinski
Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, UK and
President, World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
Blogs; http://ziggytheblue.wordpress.com and http://ziggytheblue.tumblr.com
Publications: http://www.researchgate.net and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/
HIFA profile: Chris Zielinski: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is President of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue https://www.hifa.org/support/members/chris
