Stakeholder survey RIVM

With the Public Health Future Outlook (VTV), RIVM offers a glimpse into future issues every four years: what is coming our way in the domain of health and care? And what does that mean for policy and practice? The VTV does this by addressing questions such as: How old will we become in the future? What disorders will be common? How healthy will we live in the future? How will healthcare costs develop?

Challenge

Many parties make use of the VTV. These include policymakers, researchers from knowledge institutes, teachers, professionals from healthcare institutions, etc. To properly serve all these target groups, it is important to properly disseminate the results of the VTV. In order to find out whether the VTV and the resources and channels used for this purpose still meet the needs of the various target groups, RIVM asked Blauw to conduct research into this among users of the VTV. The aim of the study was to find leads for optimization of the next VTV.

Vision

Qualitative stakeholder research

For this study, we interviewed professionals working at ministries, knowledge institutes, training institutes, healthcare organizations and local governments. Because the information needs of professionals and the use and evaluation of communication materials are largely determined by the type of organization and position, we visited the target group at the workplace for a personal interview.

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Solution

We now know from previous stakeholder research that, contrary to what you might suspect, many professionals are far from always having an active and structured way of staying abreast of developments relevant to their profession. We have noticed that they therefore often find it difficult to reflect on their own information needs and relevant sources the moment we ask them directly about them. This insight has led us to first pay attention to a person's function in the interview. After all, tasks, responsibilities and objectives say a lot about the (implicit) information needs. Only then do we take stock of what information concretely contributes to their work and what sources they consult for it. From that frame of reference, we then discussed communication and VTV products.

Interlocutor at level

In stakeholder research it is important to be a high-level interlocutor. That is why at Blauw we always use senior researchers who are experienced in interviewing professionals at higher policy, management and administrative levels. They also have a feel for political and social relations.

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Result

Results of the stakeholder research

The research found that the VTV-2018 is highly rated by users. However, it did show that the products, such as the website and the summary booklet, mainly meet the needs of frequent users of the VTV. The study showed that the VTV could become more relevant to a broader target group by making some adjustments to the structure and content of the VTV and by promoting the VTV more. Based on the research, we were able to provide RIVM with concrete recommendations for this purpose. The RVIM project team involved has now translated these recommendations into improvement actions for the next edition. We are confident that this will lead to a nice final result!

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