Abstract
BackgroundHealth interview and examination surveys provide valuable information for policy, practice and research purposes. Appropriate use of high-quality, representative and timely population data can indirectly help the citizens to live healthier and longer lives. The aim of this study was to review how health survey data have supported health policy making, health research and everyday health care in Finland.MethodsData were collected by focused interviews with ten Finnish senior experts from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, political parties, National Institute for Health and Welfare, universities, and health associations.ResultsMost interviewees agreed that health surveys have positively affected the health of the population over the past 50 years - through health strategies, care guidelines, legislation, research, prevention programs, risk calculators, and healthier products on the market. There is also a need for further development: the latest research results should be provided in a nutshell for politicians, and effective tools should be developed more for health care professionals’ use. The coverage of health information on children, adolescents, oldest old, disabled persons, migrants and ethnic minorities should be improved.ConclusionsSound health policy and its successful implementation require extensive national cooperation and new communication strategies between policy makers, researchers, health care professionals, health service providers - and citizens. The future health information system in Finland should better cover all population groups. To obtain more comprehensive health information, the possibilities for register linkages should be secured and register data should be further evaluated and developed to serve health monitoring purposes.
Highlights
Health interview and examination surveys provide valuable information for policy, practice and research purposes
Our study aims to review how health survey data have supported Finnish health policy, how these data could be better utilised, and how to guarantee the comprehensive health information system in the future
Overall, respondents consistently felt that the Finnish health surveys provide valuable data for health policy, health care practice and research (Fig. 1, Additional file 1)
Summary
Health interview and examination surveys provide valuable information for policy, practice and research purposes. The aim of this study was to review how health survey data have supported health policy making, health research and everyday health care in Finland. The North Karelia Project is a prime example of Information on mortality, health status and health care is obtained from administrative health registers covering the whole country and all ages. Key information on risk factors and functional capacity can only be collected by Health examination surveys (HES), which include questionnaire-based data, Kilpeläinen et al Archives of Public Health (2019) 77:48 physical measurements and biological sample collection [1, 5,6,7,8, 11,12,13,14]
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