This page includes:

• descriptions of standard methods used within OHID to produce indicators robustly and consistently
• supporting materials to assist with interpretation of the Fingertips profiles and further use of the indicator data  

These include guidance documents and tools. Some of these were previously published on the website of the Association of Public Health Observatories, and others which are Public Health England (PHE) publications. All guidance is in the process of being reviewed and updated.  The latest guidance is contained in a new set of pages. As older documents are reviewed and updated the content will be added to the new pages and previous versions removed from the list below.

The content is managed by the Public Health Intelligence Methods team.

Public Health Technical Guidance – Latest guidance

Technical Guides

• Comparators Briefing – Overview
• Comparators Briefing – Technical 
• Technical Guide – Aggregation (December 2019)
• Technical Guide – Relative and Absolute Inequality Explainer
• Technical Guide – Confidence Intervals (updated June 2018)
• Technical Guide – Funnel Plots (updated January 2018)
• Technical Guide – RAG Rating Indicator Values (updated January 2018)
• Technical Guide – Spine Charts (updated July 2017)
• Technical Guide – Fingertips Trend Markers (February 2020)
• IMD 2015 and 2019 – adjustments to align scores with 2021 LSOAs (September 2024)
• Using ONS mortality data – taking account of 2011 changes to cause of death coding
• Reference table of ICD10 v2010 comparability ratios
• Using ONS mortality data – taking account of 2014 changes to cause of death coding
• Reference table of ICD10 Iris comparability ratios

Analytical Tools

• Funnel plot tool for proportions (updated June 2017)
• Funnel plot tool for rates (updated July 2021)
• Funnel plot tool for ratios (updated July 2021)
• Tool for assigning deprivation categories (updated November 2017)
• Tool for calculating common public health statistics and their confidence intervals (updated February 2018)
• Excel add-ins for rates, proportions and DSRs (updated November 2018)
• Guide for loading Excel add-ins
• The PHE indicator methods R package is available from CRAN - instructions for downloading and installing are here.
• Inequalities calculation tool
• Slope index of inequality tool (simulated confidence intervals) (updated December 2017 with RII)
• Life expectancy calculator (updated February 2019 with slight change to confidence interval calculations for consistency with ONS method)

APHO Technical Briefings

• APHO Technical Briefing 1 – Sources of data on lifestyle risk factors in local populations
• Detailed Supplement
• APHO Technical Briefing 2 – Statistical process control methods in public health intelligence
• APHO Technical Briefing 3 – Commonly used public health statistics and their confidence intervals
• Additional DSR Guidance (July 2017)
• APHO Technical Briefing 4 – Target setting in a multi-agency environment
• APHO Technical Briefing 5 – Geodemographic Segmentation
• APHO Technical Briefing 6 – Using small area data in public health intelligence
• APHO Technical Briefing 7 – Measuring smoking prevalence in local populations
• Supplementary Paper: Other potential sources of smoking-related data
• APHO Technical Briefing 8 – Prevalence Modelling
• APHO Technical Briefing 9 – Measuring Sustainable Development

Other APHO Technical Guides

• The Good Indicators Guide: Understanding how to use and choose indicators
• Dying to know: How to interpret and investigate hospital mortality measures