Local health profiles are an important tool in doing evidence-based local health promotion.
Why local health profiles:
To assist the strengthening of the evidence-based work in the municipalities we have, in line with the holistic approach used in the FELIS project, created a methodology to work evidence-based, which is based on the creation of a local, contextual knowledge base to assist local prioritizations and efforts.
Local health profiles are studies of health that are based on the same type of questions used in national and regional health studies (e.g. the SUSY-studies from the National Institute of Public Health). However, the advantages of the health profiles are:
- It is possible and even preferable to supplement with a series of context-related questions, which applies specifically to that residential area or community. (E.g. questions of social capital, open answered questions of suggestions of changes of the physical environment etc.)
- The data collection of the local health profiles can be structured in a way that allows for residents of other ethnic heritage and socially disadvantaged groups to participate. This is usually not the case in the national and regional questionnaire surveys because these groups of people often do not participate in and respond to surveys using only hard copies of the questionnaire. This creates specific demands for the collection of data, in that it requires use of local interfaces (e.g. involvement of ethnic associations and contact persons in order to provide oral information on the study, the use of bilingual interpreters etc.)