Public health teams, policy-makers, councillors and NGOs often need facts about a specific area. If they’re looking for data on things like the number of smokers, the demand for hospital beds, or the birth rate, they turn to their regional Health and Wellbeing Board.

These local authority committees are required to produce a document known as a JSNA (Joint Strategic Needs Assessment) every few years. It’s a snapshot of the demographics and healthcare needs of the local population, and is used by a variety of stakeholders including policy makers and strategy groups.

Like most local authority committees, the London Borough of Hackney and the City of London Health and Wellbeing Board have previously produced their JSNA as a simple read-only PDF document. But, in the digital age, they knew that there was more they could do to make this document accessible, useful, and engaging.

That’s when they called us in — not to build the final digital version of the JSNA, but to help them understand the possibilities and ensure that they were heading down the right path.

We’ve written up the whole process in a case study, so, if you’d like to know more, read on.

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Image: Nick (cc)