Purpose
In order to appropriately plan, deliver and evaluate local health programs and policies, an accurate understanding of community health status and health needs is required. While national and provincial health surveys provide a general picture of health of the population, finer grained, community-level health information is needed, so that specific needs within our diverse communities can be understood and addressed with programming and education outreach.
Overview
To address this knowledge gap at the community-level, the Web-based Health and Lifestyle Survey initiative aims to develop an online tool for residents of the Vancouver Coastal Health region. These residents will be encouraged to share information about their health and lifestyle choices and in return will be provided with an individual, tailored report summarizing community-level health statistics for their interest and highlighting local health programs that they may be interested in participating in.
The information generated from this initiative will give health providers, planners, and decision makers reliable population health information that can be used to improve public health policy, programming within the community, and to inform decisions about resource distribution to best meet local health needs. The vision is to contribute to the development of policies that reduce inequities and improve the health and well-being of residents in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and, should the initiative extend to other regions over time, across the province of British Columbia.
Status (Winter 2012)
Content experts and cultural advisers are being engaged to refine the draft core questionnaire and to validate the content and format meet the objectives and priorities of the initiative. Planning is underway for an initial roll-out of the survey in 2012.
Contact
For more information, please contact Michael Lim
- My Health My Community QR code
