In Focus
The Public Health Research Toolkit
Adapting to the changing data environment
The Surveillance, Risk Assessment and Policy (SRAP) Subgroup of the ISBT Transfusion-Transmitted Infectious Diseases Working Party (TTID) is updating the Public Health Toolkit1, originally developed to strengthen collaboration between blood services and public health authorities.
Blood donation systems have long generated valuable public health information, but the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of these partnerships and demonstrated the potential of blood donor data for surveillance, epidemiological studies and population-level public health initiatives. At the same time, the information landscape, available resources and public health priorities have evolved substantially since the Toolkit was first developed.
Figure 1. The ISBT Public Health Research Toolkit: A strategic roadmap
The challenge is no longer simply encouraging blood services and public health agencies to engage, but to provide practical guidance on how to establish, structure and sustain effective partnerships. The revised Toolkit will address issues such as identifying potential public health partners, defining shared objectives, data sharing and governance, ethics, funding, timelines, testing tools and biobanking. It can be difficult to understand how blood donor data can be used in a public health context because donors are selected to be in good health, thus not fully representative of the general population to which public health policy is usually aimed. Furthermore, blood donation data are not ‘top of mind’ in public health agencies. It is therefore essential for blood service and transfusion experts to engage directly with public health professionals to highlight the value and address generalizability concerns.The revision of the Toolkit will also focus on usability. The figure shows the process for updating content in the two major pillars that support the public health toolkit (Figure 1).
The toolkit contains substantial information and published literature, but users may benefit from concise summaries, practical checklists and clear guidance. The revised resource will endeavour to be accessible to blood services operating in both high-resource and resource-limited settings. The next step will be to conduct a survey of TTID members while simultaneously seeking the perspectives of public health colleagues who have worked with blood services. Their experiences will help ensure that the revised Toolkit reflects the needs of both sides of the partnership. Feedback will inform the development of the resource through dedicated working groups and subgroups.
We also plan to increase awareness of the Toolkit through future Transfusion Today articles, webinars, conference presentations and potentially engagement with public health meetings. Ultimately, the goal is not simply to update a website resource, but to provide a practical framework that enables blood services and public health agencies to recognize shared opportunities, build sustainable partnerships and make better use of the unique information generated through blood donation.
References
- ISBT Public Health Research Toolkit: https://www.isbtweb.org/resources/toolkits.html
