Análisis de escenarios

According to Oliver (2006), “Science can identify solutions to pressing public health problems, but only politics can turn most of those solutions into reality” (p. 195). Some of my research participants shared the same view when I discussed with them the social determinants of health and how to present relevant indicators. They brought up issues related to health policy and policymaker’s needs and expressed their views with regards to presenting the indicators and using the tool to support policymaking.

5.6.1 Main Finding

Policymakers do not have time to learn how to use visualization tools, or to understand reports that include complex analysis. They prefer simple graphics, which can deliver information in a clear way. They also prefer information that reflects their community problems more than the provincial or national problems. Information visualization and presentation might be of secondary importance for policymakers. Public awareness, public pressure, and media pressure could have a higher impact on policymaking. Additionally, there was no definitive evidence for the possibility of using the tool by policymakers.

5.6.2 Participants’ Voice

Participant#5, an assistant professor, believed that information presentation is of

secondary importance and that policymakers will respond to healthcare issues only when there is enough pressure from the media:

“I don't think that the problem is in the presentation..., yes it has to be a convincing story so that policymakers can understand why this is a change that is required and how it is going to work, but to me; creating action is more about creating the desire for a change. The way that data is presented is less important than, for example, a couple of newspaper articles that come out and make the government look really

bad about the issue, or some real community concern, which leads to sending letters to the government about the issue... To me, they have lots of convincing things to work with…, they need to put your issue somehow on the top of their pile… and I am not sure that the visualization is the main component; it is probably a secondary component. They just don’t want the people to get mad at them. So I think the number one issue is that they have a sense that this is a priority issue, probably the secondary thing is that they can understand what the best way to approach the issue is, and that is when they would get into how the data is being presented.”

Participant#6, a health records specialist, described her work as a data analyst. She did not comment on the political aspects of decision-making in healthcare. However, she did describe decision makers’ time constraint and their needs for understandable graphs and quick answers to their questions, and how they do not have time to learn new tools:

“People [decision makers] wanted to see graphs; they wanted to see visualizations, and they needed to be able to interpret the data, or see the data in a certain way that they can understand. If they just see numbers, it is [the data] irrelevant to them or it is not important unless the numbers were so big or so small, but usually most people want to see graphs. As for visualization tools, people in the management don't have time to learn anything; they want an answer quickly. They want to know what is going on by just looking at what they have to look at. They don't have time probably to learn this whole thing [visualization tools] if it was easy maybe, but if it gets too complex for some people they just don't want to have anything to do with it. Managers want answers to specific questions; they want to see the direction of things, but they don't want to spend the time exploring what is going on. However, [Information visualization] is fun and interesting to data analysts or decision support managers, who might have the time to explore all of that.”

Participant#4, who is an epidemiologist and a program manager at a health unit, described the information needs of the decision makers in her health unit. Decision makers want to see healthcare indicators that are relevant to the geographic area of their

health unit rather than the provincial or national indicators. This participant believed that this might even impede the use of my tool because it shows Canadian level data:

“Will it help decision makers, at my regional level where I work, see the impact? I would say no, because in [our] region we are a very affluent community, and it is very easy for them to say well this is Canadian data, and It doesn't apply to [our region]. I have been challenged many times, and I have had to do our own local data reporting on health inequities to convince the decision makers at my end because they say the Canadian and the provincial data doesn't apply to us, we are a special case. In fact, we are not, and I needed to show them that.”

Participant#7, who is an assistant professor and epidemiologist, believed that decision makers do not prefer very analytical information such as the information presented in the