March 2010 - Constituent Society and Partnership Corner

Association of Public Health Epidemiologists in Ontario

APHEO’s Core Indicators project is a collaborative volunteer initiative among professionals in the broader public health epidemiology community. Over 120 public health indicators, accompanying resources, data sources, and syntax files are housed on the APHEO website.

The Core Indicators were originally based on objectives from the Mandatory Health Programs and Services Guidelines and are currently being revised to reflect the new Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS).

The Population Health Assessment and Surveillance (PHAS) Protocol specifically refers to the standard definitions of variables and health indicators developed by APHEO and requires that public health units use these definitions where available. This necessitates that the information in the indicators be comprehensive, current, accurate, and complete — a monumental task for a relatively small group of volunteers who do this work with the support of their organizations as well as on their own time.

Funding from PHAC enabled Core Indicator volunteers to revise and create new indicators and resources related to chronic disease and risk factor surveillance, including preliminary work on the built environment. However, funding for the Core Indicators Project Manager ended in July 2009.

While a substantial amount of work was completed, much more remains to be done. Most notably, indicators for reproductive health, injury prevention, the social determinants of health, and child health need to be revised and new ones developed in light of the OPHS.

The Core Indicators Project is an area in which APHEO has approached the Agency to collaborate in order to further the work and address the ongoing nature of the Core Indicators development. Provincial leadership in this project would alleviate the pressure on our volunteers and be instrumental in the development and maintenance of usable health indicators for the health units in the province.