Exploring stakeholder needs for collecting, interpreting, and sharing neighbourhood health needs

Abstract

Ageing populations, rising health inequalities, and increasing rates of chronic diseases have highlighted the need for preventive and community-centered approaches to health and well-being. Understanding of the local neighbourhood context is essential, as it helps identify priorities and relevant stakeholders for preventive action. Local knowledge, including quantitative data and community narratives, can support collaboration, agenda setting, and collective action. While quantitative neighbourhood data are widely available, qualitative insights into citizens’ experiences and needs are often lacking. To address this gap, stakeholders, like (future) professionals in health and social care, lecturers, advisors, researchers, and citizens within a local coalition, adopted a design-based research approach to develop prototypes that support the identification (collection, interpretation and sharing) of qualitative data on citizens’ broader health needs within their neighbourhood. This presentation focuses on the first phase of the design-based research process, based on the Design Council’s Double Diamond approach, which aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the context and the needs of the stakeholders involved in developing the prototypes. A qualitative research design was used, including observations, multiple group discussions, and (duo) interviews. The findings provided valuable insights into stakeholders’ experiences of the current and desired situation when identifying (collecting, interpreting, sharing) citizens’ broader health needs. For example, citizens reported that their needs are not always acknowledged or addressed. In the desired situation, they envisioned a way of working in which their needs are consistently considered and where actions taken in response are transparent. The insights helped define the design challenge and identify requirements that guided the further development of the prototypes.