Phire – Public Health Innovation & Research in Europe

INTRODUCTION

PHIRE, Public Health Innovation and Research in Europe

PHIRE (Public Health Innovation and Research in Europe) is a collaborative action between EUPHA members and its general objective is to contribute to the improvement of public health knowledge and practice across the European Union by assessing the impact and uptake of the first Public Health Programme (PHP) and structuring information on public health research.
PHIRE seeks to explore uptake of knowledge from public health actions funded under the first PHP at national level across Europe; develop a resource base bringing together national public health research at European level; assess the impact of the public health programme and propose recommendations for improved effectiveness of current and future health programmes.
During 2011, PHIRE activities were mainly developed by two work packages 4 and 5. The specific objectives for WP4 were to identify and characterize eight ‘tracer projects’ developed within the first Public Health Programme (PHP). The projects were selected in relation to their applicability across European countries and for their innovative character. The aim was to assess dissemination and uptake of the results across the 30 European Economic Area (EEA) countries to determine national and regional impact on public health actions. The work was undertaken in close cooperation with the EUPHA Section leads¹. An independent report will be produced.

Work package 5, Demonstrating national innovation and research

The Work package 5 was designed, through collaboration of EUPHA's member national associations, to present national and comparative data on public health research and innovation across Europe.

It was led by a Work Package Coordinator together with four PHIRE partners. Each of these four PHIRE partners worked with 7-8 national associations in geographical sectors of Europe (Appendix 1).

Two sets of data were gained from National Public Health Associations:

i) In the first year, information describing national public health research calls and programmes was collected;

ii) In the second year, national summary reports were compiled based on public health innovation and research drawn from the investigations by the 7 EUPHA section informants (obtained during 2011, with WP4).

This report concerns the first year of the project (2011). The specific objectives of this 1st phase of WP5 were:

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  To describe thematic areas of public health research (research fields) which are currently being financed through national programmes and calls;
  
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  Establish contacts and collaboration with National Public Health Associations.
  

MATERIAL AND METHODS

To fulfil the objectives, a set of activities and tools were developed. Box 1 lists the main meetings during which the study was designed and implementation was followed up.

Box 1 - Summary of activities carried by PHIRE management committee and WP5 coordination to design and conduct the 1^st phase WP5

Management committee meeting, Utrecht 30 September and 1^st October 2010 Work Package 5 Coordination Meeting on the 11th Nov 2010 in Amsterdam, during EUPHA annual conference Telephone conference 31st January 2011, from Paris with summary of main resolutions) Work Package 5 Coordination Meeting on the 3rd May 2011 in Brussels Participation on the meeting of WP 4 section leads (Cláudia Conceição, Denmark, 4th June 2011) Management Committee Meeting, Utrecht 22 September and 23 September 2011

The main instrument developed to collect information on public health research programmes and calls was a form. The form drew on lessons learned with the preparation of country profiles in STEPS’ (Strengthening Engagement in public health research, www.steps-ph.eu). According to limitations of time and the knowledge of the variability on the amount of calls on public health research, it was decided that the survey would be limited to programmes and calls on public health research opened during 2010.

A first version of the form was piloted during December in each of the countries of the regional coordinators (France, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia). The final version was ready after the telephone conference in January 2011.

The form was to be completed for each call or programme on public health research identified in the country. The definition of public health research, to be used as reference by the National Public Health Association is shown in Box 2 and Appendix 2.

Box 2 – Definition of public health research sent as reference

Definition of public health research used on SPHERE* Public-health research operates at a complex level between scientists, individuals and society. And the issues that public-health research addresses – how to improve the health of the population, and how to ensure the effective and efficient organisation of health care – are of direct concern to governments themselves. For SPHERE, the following definition of public health research, which gave a broad meaning, was used: "Public-health research refers to the organized quest for new knowledge to protect, promote and improve people's health. It: • is undertaken at population or health services level, in contrast to laboratory (cellular) or clinical (individual) health research; • differs from public-health practice (which also uses scientific methods), as it is designed to obtain generalizable knowledge rather than to address specific programmes for service delivery; • is usually goal-oriented, addressing questions of policy relevance, and may be published in either academic journals or reports; and • uses a range of observational methods, including surveys, registers, data sets, case studies and statistical modelling, and draws on disciplines including epidemiology, sociology, psychology and economics, and interdisciplinary fields of environmental health, health promotion, disease prevention, health-care management, health-services research and health-systems research." (BMC Public Health 2009, 9:203 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-203) * SPHERE, Strengthening Public Health Research in Europe, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-health/sphere

The form (Appendix 3) covered four main areas:

A - Identification of the funding thematic program or call for research projects;

B - Description of the program/call;

C - Funding and duration of the program/call;

D - Eligibility criteria and other conditions to obtain funding.

The strategy to launch the first phase WP5 was as follow:

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  A first email was sent to EUPHA Governing Council members from EUPHA office on the first February 2011 (Appendix 4). This email asked each National Public Health Association to designate a responsible person to collaborate with PHIRE. It included:
  
  • 
    a letter from EUPHA President regarding PHIRE (PHIRE had already been presented at the annual Governing Council meeting in November 2010). The EUPHA President also introduced the Regional coordinators who would send the forms and asked for collaboration from the National Public Health Associations (Appendix 5);
    
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    a summary on PHIRE (Appendix 6)
    
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  Emails and phone calls from regional coordinators followed until November 2011 (Table 1 )
  
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  Second email to EUPHA members from EUPHA office on the 14 April 2011 (Appendix 7) with the following attachments:
  
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    Second letter from EUPHA President acknowledging contributions received and again reminding National Public Health Associations about PHIRE (Appendix 8);
    
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    Summary on PHIRE (Appendix 6)
    

The strategies to obtain collaboration from National Public Health Associations were further discussed in May (Box 1). The general strategy followed by regional coordinators included the following steps:

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  Address initial email to National Public Health Associations’contact given by EUPHA office;
  
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  Offer to contact by telephone (ask for a time, date and number to establish the contact);
  
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  Ask the National Public Health Associations first contact to suggest another person to be contacted if the first contact was unable to provide information (to use even if the contact does not belong to the National Public Health Associations);
  
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  Offer assistance in organizing the information and fulfilling the forms
  
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  If no answer, use other contacts of the same National Public Health Associations (to be asked for from EUPHA office);
  
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  If still no answer, use contacts outside National Public Health Associations.
  

Contacts made and final respondents are presented on Table 1. A total of more than 242 emails were sent and 60 phone calls were made. The results were received until the end of November 2011.

Table 1 - WP5 first phase, summary of contacts between regional coordinators and National Public Health Associations and Country informants and type of organization from final respondent

Country	NPHA	Date of first contact	Number of phone calls	E - mails		Date of reception of answers	Organization of final respondent /key informants
				Sent	Received
Austria	Y	9 Feb 11	2	11	10	-	-
Belgium	Y	10 Feb 11	1	10	6	28 Apr 11	NPHA
Bulgaria	Y(2)	9 Feb 11	-	10	5	22 Jun 11	NPHA
Cyprus	N	11 Feb 11	5	5	3	29 Apr 11	University
Czech Republic	Y	9 Feb 11	4	11	5	-	-
Denmark	Y	9 Feb 11	4	6	1	8 Sep 11	WP5
Estonia	Y	9 Feb 11	4	13	2	-	-
Finland	Y	9 Feb 11	4	6	1	7 Jun 11	NPHA
France	Y	10 Feb 11	-	1	1	18 May 11	NPHA + WP5
Germany	Y (3)	10 Feb 11	1	14	5	9 Sep 11	NPHA + WP5
Greece	N	11 Feb 11	3	6	1	22 Apr 11	MoH
Hungary	Y(2)	9 Feb 11	6	6	-	-	-
Iceland	Y	2 Apr 11	1	6	3	1 Nov 11	NPHA + WP5
Ireland	N	23 Feb 11	-	2	1	14 Mar 11	MoH + HRA
Italy	Y	11 Feb 11	-	6	4	26 May 11	NPHA
Latvia	Y	9 Feb 11	3	7	3	19 Jul 11	NPHA
Lithuania	Y	9 Feb 11	-	4	-	15 Apr 11	WP5
Luxembourg	N	20 May 11	-	10	2	-	-
Malta	Y	11 Feb 11	-	1	1	19 Jan 11	NPHA
Netherlands	Y	2 Apr 11	1	9	4	Nov 11	HRA
Norway	Y	9 Feb 11	1	8	6	17 Aug. 11	NPHA + WP5
Poland	Y	9 Feb 11	4	14	7	6 Oct 11	NPHA + WP5
Portugal	Y	11 Feb 11	7	11	2	15 Jul 11	NPHA
Romania	Y	9 Feb 11	-	6	3	26 Jul 11	NPHA
Slovakia	Y	9 Feb 11	-	1	1	5 Apr 11	NPHA
Slovenia	Y	9 Feb 11	3	10	2	30 Oct 11	NPHA
Spain	Y	11 Feb 11	5	23	10	27 Jul 11	HRA
Sweden	Y	9 Feb 11	-	8	6	10 May 11	NPHA
Switzerland	Y	10 Feb 11	1	12	4	19 Sep 11	NPHA + WP5
United Kingdom	Y(2)	2 Apr 11	-	5	4	19 Aug 11	NPHA
TOTAL			60	242	103

Notes: NPHA – National Public Health Association; Y – yes; N – no; (number of NPHA when more than one); MoH - Ministry of Health; WP5 – work package 5; HRA - Health research agency


Definition of calls and programmes to include

The WP partners sent a definition of Public Health Research (Box 2 and Appendix 2) to National Public Health Associations or country key informants (Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, and Luxembourg). The submitted material was sometimes discussed with respondents and also moderated by the work package or project coordinators. A further revision for internal consistency was performed during the preparation of this report, and at this stage the decisions were taken by consensus or majority of authors.

Classification of themes

To organise thematic areas financed through competitive financing (programmes and calls) some classifications were explored² but none matched the needs of this project.

A new typology was therefore developed by the WP partners. An initial proposal was applied to the existing reported calls and programmes. It was revised twice, and a final classification was agreed.
Some general rules guided the process of thematic organization of the calls /programmes:

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  the main objective was not to create a taxonomy on public health research but to classify the calls collected;
  
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  all the items included on the classification created had, at least, one call. This means that even if a category would be logical, if no call existed, it wouldn’t be included;
  
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  as a call might include many aspects, a main “entry point” of that research should be chosen and then classified accordingly. This means that a call/program is included in only one category.
  

The classification process took place by email, where reasons for disagreement on others ‘classifications was offered and positions changed. During the Management committee that took place in June 2012 and during revision of earlier versions of this report, further revisions of the classification were made.