About us

About us

What is public health intelligence?

A framework of knowledge, methods, processes, tools and techniques for:

  • Measuring health and wellbeing risks and determinants, health needs, health outcomes, health status and providing an interpreted narrative describing these in populations.
  • Assessing, measuring and describing the impacts of the influences and determinants on health.
  • Making comparisons and identifying variation in services, health determinants, outcomes and health status.
  • Target setting for health improvement, monitoring performance and checking changes over time.
  • Assessing and evaluating services and quantifying the impacts of prevention programmes.
  • Overall, it’s knowing where to look for data, information and knowledge and having the ability to use that information safely and effectively in order to support decision making.
  • Underpinning all this is an approach that looks at population health questions from the perspectives of person, place and time: an epidemiological approach that considers the distribution, determinants and impacts of health and disease in populations from these various perspectives.

What do we do in practice?

We work with you to …

    • Protect the health of the public.
    • Prevent ill-health.
    • Promote healthy lifestyles.
    • Provide advice on the commissioning of health and care services to meet population needs.

How do we do this?

  • Provide project based needs analysis, needs assessment and, through the local Health and Wellbeing Board, joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA).
  • Give advice on the effective use of information analysis to support decision making for public health, healthcare and local authority services.
  • Disseminate and develop the local picture of the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF), and other public health data profiles, to help people to understand and improve health outcomes.
  • Identify vulnerable populations and marginalised groups and conduct analytical work to identify and help to reduce inequalities in local health outcomes.
  • Produce health and health determinant profiles and local narratives of health.
  • Ensure an understanding of local performance and the impacts of interventions and services on health outcomes.
  • Apply the evidence base to local public health and healthcare problems.
  • Develop and maintain databases of public health intelligence data.
  • Develop, maintain and publicise public health intelligence resources.
  • Keep up to date with developments in public health intelligence methods and data releases.
  • Provide modelled population based data where local data are not available.
  • Provide public health and analytical advice to the NHS, via the Clinical Commissioning Group, the North and South Provider Alliances and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.
  • Deliver the information requirements for the Director of Public Health’s Annual Reports.
  • Overall, provide the analytical, public health expertise and local area knowledge to provide a sound local public health intelligence service to the local authorities, the NHS and our system partners.

Public health intelligence in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Councils

There is a joint public health intelligence team covering Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Councils.

  • Team email address for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough: PHI-team@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Public Health England

We work collaboratively with Public Health England’s Local Knowledge and Intelligence Service (LKIS) East. Public Health England hosts and runs a regional health intelligence network that holds regular meetings to share knowledge, to learn collectively about the use of intelligence resources and to work collaboratively. LKIS East of England can be contacted at LKISEast@phe.gov.uk. There is a local LKIS East Knowledge Hub site here https://khub.net/web/pheeastofengland/ and a national one here https://khub.net/web/guest/phe (sign-up is required for access).

Public Health England’s Fingertips Public Health Profiles platform provides a huge range of interactive subject-based population health intelligence resources and data downloads. Public Health England’s data analysis and tools page provides a subject based menu of resources. A signposting guide to sources of public health intelligence is also available (sign-up needed for Knowledge Hub).

Local Cambridgeshire and Peterborough population health intelligence resources

Currently, most of our web based resources are linked to each of the Council’s websites. We hope to develop an updated and more integrated resource during 2019. Some of the web pages on Cambridgeshire Insight do contain Cambridgeshire and Peterborough information and some of the JSNAs cover both areas.

Cambridgeshire County Council

Peterborough City Council

Public Health England population health intelligence resources

Many of these cover local authority and CCG (NHS) data.

CCG (NHS) specific intelligence resources

Please note that many of the resource links include CCG and NHS data.

Other analytical and population health intelligence resources

  • NHS Digital home page – collected data and information resources from the umbrella body for information services in health and social care.
  • NHS Digital’s data and information page provides an online portal for NHS and other data in spreadsheet form, metadata (data about data) and some methodological information.
  • Office for National Statistics home page – the national producer of official statistics and the recognised national statistical institute of the UK.
  • The King Fund – data and policy briefings from the King’s Fund independent charity who work to improve health and care in England.

Library and knowledge management services

  • Local library services are provided by the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust’s Library Service, based at Hinchingbrooke Hospital Education Centre and Laxton Library at Peterborough Hospital. Cambridgeshire County Council has a contract with the library to provide current awareness and literature/evidence search services and the Hinchingbrooke Library is also the local administrator for the NHS OpenAthens service.
    • Library skills training is available.
    • Local library services at Hinchingbrooke and Peterborough: contact by phone on 01480 416412 (H) and 01733 678081 (P) or by email at hch-tr.libraryteam@nhs.net (H) and nwangliaft.laxtonlibrary@nhs.net (P).
  • With an NHS OpenAthens login you can access the electronic resources purchased by NHS England, your NHS regional library network and by your local healthcare library. Click here for NHS OpenAthens account registration.
  • Public Health England (PHE) also provide knowledge services online and these can be found at https://phelibrary.koha-ptfs.co.uk/. A local authority support page is available here.
    • Public Health England’s Discovery Service is available here (sign-up account required). Discovery services enable searches across content and give access to full text where available. The discovery service allows local authority public health teams to search and access titles currently provided by PHE, along with the nationally procured core content journals and databases.
    • PHE Knowledge Services can also be contacted at libraries@phe.org.uk.
  • NHS staff can also access some journals free from Health Information Online.
  • The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) also provide evidence services.

Public health intelligence and epidemiology learning resources

  • Public Health England (PHE) offer classroom based courses and have developed online support materials in partnership with Health Education England here.
  • You can find details of local PHE classroom based courses for commissioners and analysts on the PHE LKIS East Knowledge Hub page.
  • PHE have also developed a population health intelligence training prospectus and this can be found here.
  • Public health online textbook including statistics and epidemiology.
  • Specific public health practitioner and specialist learning for epidemiology, health information and statistical methods.

Contact Us

Public health intelligence team guide