RAPID HEALTH NEEDS ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT : RAPID HEALTH NEEDS ASSESSMENT WRITTEN REPORT

Aims

The aim of this assessment is to consolidate your learning throughout the course. The assessment also aims to enhance your skills of synthesising information and communicating in different ways.

Learning Outcomes

This assessment aligns with the intended course learning outcomes
2. Understand how the wider determinants of health impact on population health and wellbeing
3. Locate, utilise, interpret and present data obtained from the major sources of information commonly
available to assess the health priorities for a defined population.
4. Demonstrate the ability to synthesise information and data from a range of sources to make
recommendations for improving population health.
5. Communicate public health related information to support a critically argued approach to improving the
health of a population.

INSTRUCTIONS

Format

This assessment involves the submission of a brief (2,000 woord) ‘rapid health needs assessment’ report. The report needs to demonstrate that you have the ability to undertake the assessment of health needs in relation to a relevant public health issue/topic and make recommendations to improve health based on the best evidence
available.
The topic for the report is student-selected and students can select any relevant public health topic, however,
care should be taken to avoid selecting too broad a focus. You should have indicated the focus for your health needs assessment in your presentation (Assessment 1) and will have received feedback to help you with the report. (It may be possible to change this focus for the final report, but this should be discussed with the course coordinator by 18th April 2022).
The report should be structured as follows:

TITLE (The title should be followed by your student ID number and an accurate word count for both the
‘executive summary’ and the ‘main text’).

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 

This should accurately summarise the most important elements of the report in no more than 350 woords. The summary can be either ‘structured’ or ‘unstructured’, but it should follow a logical structure.

BACKGROUND: outlining the background to the public health topic and indicating why it is an important/relevant
topic. The final part of the background section should identify the ‘aim’ of the ‘health needs assessment’ and the
‘target population’.

METHODS: The methods section should include a description of the sources of information/data that were used to inform the health needs assessment. This information should primarily relate to published material or routinely available data. The methods section should include details of bibliographic databases searched (e.g. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane), national/ international reports (e.g. WHO, Scottish Government), routinely available data (e.g. mortality, cancer registration, hospital discharge data, disease prevalence data from GP Practices), national/local surveys (e.g. Scottish Health Survey, Scottish Household Survey). Any relevant ‘data gaps’ and ‘limitations to the interpretation of data’ should be mentioned in this section.

FINDINGS: Findings can include both ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ research. This section should include a description of the relevant ‘demographics’ (e.g. age, sex, deprivation, ethnicity) of the ‘target population’. It should also describe, where relevant, the incidence, prevalence and trends in the public health topic.
The ‘population health needs’ that have been identified should be described, along with what is known about the ‘current provision’ of individual services (e.g. smoking cessation clinics) and/or population interventions (e.g. advertising restrictions on tobacco products). Attention should be focused on the likely effectiveness (and cost-
effectiveness) of current provision/intervention. The level of evidence supporting current provision/ intervention
should be clearly identified (e.g. systematic reviews of randomised clinical trials, observational data, expert
opinion).

PRIORITY NEEDS & CHANGES TO PROVISION: The focus in this section should be on the ‘priority needs of the target population’. If multiple health needs have been identified in the previous section, then this section should identify which needs should be prioritised over others. Health needs assessment often identifies gaps (‘unmet needs’) in the provision of services or public health interventions.
Recommendations to improve the health of the target population should be made and these should be based on the best evidence available. Attention should again be focused on the likely effectiveness (and cost-
effectiveness) of a change in provision/intervention. The level of evidence supporting current provision/ intervention should be clearly identified (e.g. systematic reviews of randomised clinical trials, observational data,
expert opinion).
Some consideration should be given as to what ‘resources’ would be required to support these changes to meet priority needs. Finally, some consideration should also be given as to how ‘future progress’ could be monitored.

REFERENCES: No more than 20 references should be included.

Word Count / Length

The executive summary should be no more than 350 woords in length. The main report should be a maximum of
2,000 woords, not including references. The word count does not include figures, tables, charts etc. No
‘APPENDICES’ should be included with the report.