Foreword Data, information and intelligence about the health of the population – these are indispensable tools for rational decisions in health service planning and management. Public health information specialists make a tremendous contribution in turning routinely collected data into useful information and usable intelligence. Often, the analysis raises new questions that spur further effort to discover the answers. The intelligence that skilled analysis generates is vital also for monitoring progress in health improvement and inequalities reduction. Annual publication of the Key Health Data series has continued for just over a decade. It has evolved over the years, changing with technology, working with new collaborators, and keeping up with re-organisations. This year’s Key Health Data comes amidst yet another reorganisation of the NHS. But the need for, and the value of, good health intelligence remains as necessary as ever. Some of the chapters reflect these changes and signal the way in which public health information needs to adapt if we are to influence the health service of the future. Quality in general practice, providing information on cancers to future commissioners of services, changes in demography due to migration, growth in the use of antipsychotics, the distribution of hot food takeaways – these are some of the chapters that feature in this collection of contributions. As in previous years, Key Health Data is what its contributors make it. Organisational change has resulted in some of our regular authors withdrawing from the task for this edition. Nevertheless, we have here 12 chapters that serve as a flavour of what public health intelligence professionals can produce. We are reminded that high quality intelligence comes from asking good questions, the application of rigour to analysis, as well as the interpreting and reporting of results by people who understand context and subject. With the availability of fast computers it is easy to be beguiled into thinking that it can all be done remotely by a few boffins in an ivory tower. But health intelligence is ultimately a human endeavour and it takes skilled, thinking humans to do it. In these times of cutbacks, we have decided not to spend resources on printed copies. So I am pleased to commend this electronic – only edition of Key Health Data, which can be downloaded from our website.
Dr Edwina Affie Director, West Midlands Commissioning Support Unit Dept of Public Health, Epidemiology & Biostatistics School of Health and Population Sciences College of Medical and Dental Sciences Public Health Building, University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT Website: http://www.haps2.bham.ac.uk/wmcsu/