Talia, welcome, we're going to have a quick chat about health needs assessment. It's a big part of your job. >> It is I think health needs assessment is quite a core skill that the junior public health practitioners definitely need to have grasp of. >> You've had experience I think of working on oral health needs, tell me how that all started. >> Yes, so one of the projects I recently completed was a health needs assessment on children, young people's oral health. And that was requested by my manager at the time. So there was some money that could have been coming to public health, instead it was going to an external provider. And we just wanted to check that the money was being used in a way that aligned with some of our other early years priorities. >> So your manager comes to you, says that they want an oral health needs assessment. Where do you start? >> Good question, Richard? So I think there's always a bit of internal scoping, sort of on my own first to make sure I really understand the topic. Then I think the next step is always to start with a project plan or some sort of project initiation document that outlines quite clearly the context, the scope and the way in which you can agree the aims and objectives with the project sponsor. >> So a project initiation document or PID, just say a little bit more about that because they're so important in actually getting projects, right? >> Yes, definitely. I think it's a good stage at which you can get buy-in from sort of senior members of staff and stakeholders where appropriate. So it's yeah, it's where you can define what your project is going to be and how it's going to look like at the end. Now, one of the questions that I often get asked is how long does it take to do a health needs assessment? And I know that's a bit of an unfair question, but what are your thoughts on it? >> [LAUGH] I'll say it just takes as long as it takes, it really depends on the project. I think on average it takes me about four months, not full-time, on a single project. But it really depends on the scope, so it could take a lot longer. And what are some of the other variables in terms of having to engage with partners that might affect the timeline? >> It definitely depends on who you need to engage. So for example, very senior members of staff have very limited time. So, it's important to get dates in their diary quite quickly. I think also if you're working, say with hospitals or with providers who are out in the fields, again, their schedules might be a bit not as predictable, yeah. >> And is so often the case in public health, a lot of it is slightly out of our control, which I think can make it quite a frustrating process sometimes if it's not going so well. Let's get back to the oral health needs assessment then. What approach do you use? >> Which approach? So I used, as I find I tend to do a mix of the epidemiological, the corporate, and the comparative approach. So I think where you can it's so crucial to get opinions from your stakeholders and to interview and really speak to people where you can. I think if you've got it, you always have to have some data because intelligence is really key to any project. And finally, the comparative's important because you have to contextualize your work. So it's one thing to say, we've had 20 hospital admissions for dental extractions and children in the past year. But I have no idea if there were 100 in our neighboring borough or 10,000 across London, or one. So, it was really hard to understand the size of an issue [LAUGH] without having some comparisons. >> Absolutely, and where do departments come into this then are they there at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end? >> So I think if you were doing a perfect health needs assessment, you would have them involved all the way through. I think reflecting on this particular project is something I could have done better, sort of making sure that key people were involved all the way. And that wasn't something I did given that this was my first project and I probably didn't didn't know. But in future work and in work I'm doing now, I'm really clear to make sure that my key stakeholders see the PID, they see drafts. They see me exploratory analyses, and they feel involved all the way. So that they're not sort of given a document at the end with the findings and it comes out of the blue. >> And one of the things that one of my bosses told me a long time ago was that health needs assessment is a process and that's where the value comes from. Can you say a little bit to that? >> Definitely, I think it's not all about that document that you get at the end. A lot of a lot of the strength and the importance of a health needs assessment is actually what you gain from doing it. So for example in oral health, I spoke to children's centers. And perhaps oral health wasn't at the top of their priority list at that time, but because I was speaking to them about it, bringing it to their attention bringing it into focus, all of a sudden it might become more of a priority. And I also think that by the end the relationships that you develop with key partners throughout the JSNA can be really valuable. So for example, in this case the oral health promotion providers I worked with, I didn't know them before but by the end, we now speak quite frequently and we're working together on co-developing an action plan. >> Let's talk about that end deliverable, that idea of having a report. Where do you start on that? >> So I actually start the report almost as one of my first steps. >> Okay. >> I tend to, so in my workplace we do our health assessments in PowerPoint. So I tend to storyboard my PowerPoint from the get-go. It really helps me to think about how much content I might have in each section, how many slides there might be, sort of the flow of the document as well. And I think that's the big part of a health needs assessment. So to create a really effective document, it's about having a strong narrative. So it's not just about having a data section, an evidence section, an interview section, for example. It's about weaving a story throughout, so that people who are reading the document with a fresh set of eyes can understand and have a good grasp of the topic and why it's so important. >> Talia thank you very much. >> Thank you. [MUSIC]
