Practice based health needs assessment: use of four methods in a small neighbourhood

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Abstract
Objective: To explore the use of four methods to define health needs in a community, with a view to formulating guidelines for practice based assessment of health needs. Design: Collection of data on health needs for a specific neighbourhood with four complementary methods: rapid participatory appraisal, postal survey, analysis of routinely available small area statistics, and collation of practice held information. Setting: Council estate of 670 homes in Edinburgh. Main outcome measures: Description and comparison of health needs found by the different methods. Results: Each method yielded particular insights into both health and health care needs. Conclusions: An extended primary care team with public health support can assess health and health care needs in a neighbourhood by means of a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. Different methods may be more suitable to assess different health needs or to explore potential service provision in the community or in primary or secondary care. A composite method may be most informative. Key messages In this study we used practice held data, routinely available local statistics, rapid participatory appraisal, and a postal survey Each method yielded particular insights into health and health care needs Many locally important health needs could not be met by health services alone A mix of assessment methods may provide more information about health needs than one method alone