How to Monitor for Population Health Outcomes: Guidelines for developing a monitoring framework

Abstract

Public Health Intelligence (PHI) is the epidemiology group of the Ministry of Health. PHI carries out the Ministry’s statutory responsibility to monitor the health of the New Zealand population by analysing population health outcomes and risks and determinants, and examining inequalities across regional boundaries and between population groups. An important role for PHI is the delivery and dissemination of epidemiology evidence for the development of policy and decision-making in the health sector. How to Monitor for Population Health Outcomes presents guidance to public and population health programme managers, and interested others, on how to develop indicators to monitor progress on achieving population health outcomes sought from their programmes. This guideline has been designed to complement the information and guidance presented in the Ministry’s Guide to Developing Public Health Programmes: A generic programme logic model Ministry of Health 2006). The need to develop a robust outcomes monitoring framework is driven by an increased expectation from central government that there will be a focus on results in the design and delivery of publicly funded services. This expectation is highlighted by the requirements of the Public Finance Act 2004 and the Crown Entities Act 20041 (The Treasury and State Services Commission 2007a; b).