Health Needs Assessment

Abstract

Health needs assessment (HNA) is one of the approaches used to provide intelligence and inform decision-making on the planning and deploying of resources to address the health priorities of local populations. Need is an important concept in public health but is also a multifaceted one that represents different things to different people. From a public health perspective, need is seen as the ‘ability to benefit’, which means that there must be effective interventions available to meet the need. In present-day public health practice, assessing the health needs of local populations typically involves considering not just their physical and mental health and well-being, but the wider determinants or social factors, such as housing, employment and education that influence their health. This chapter describes the historic development of health needs assessment and its use in contemporary public health practice. The different ways in which need is perceived and their implications for the health service are discussed. A step-by-step guide through the HNA process is outlined and comparisons are made with other overlapping approaches to assessment. The practical challenges of carrying out HNAs are highlighted and case studies are used to illustrate real life experiences.