Building a Population Health and Wellbeing Data Ecosystem for Hong Kong

High quality data form the backbone of any understanding of the issues of population health and wellbeing. We need data to identify the current state of our population, and the services which our organizations provide, in order to better understand – and prepare for – changes in demand.

We also need data to compare Hong Kong to other parts of the world. This is needed for us to see how and why our circumstances are different (or similar); but also, to inform us of what we can learn from other territories (and what they can learn from us).

We need data to examine changes over time. How are populations changing from year to year – in terms of their characteristics, but also in their attitudes, values and so on? And how are they changing in the context of specific interventions and policies which are implemented?

Finally, we need to ensure we are never duplicating our efforts to secure access to data. Evidence-based interventions and other experiments often require access to representative groups of people. However, finding such groups in a methodologically rigorous way can take much time and effort.

In order to respond to this, we propose the development of an integrated data ecosystem for Hong Kong. We will be able to deploy adapted versions of existing international surveys to better understand Hong Kong both in its own right, but also in a comparative context. Demonstrating our commitment to population health in our own local community and building on our partnership with Haven of Hope Christian Service, we will explore the possibility of developing a further, in-depth study from Sai Kung District. We will then be able to use these surveys to form a ‘representative panel’ for other researchers from all disciplines across Hong Kong and broader stakeholders to use for their own research.