Towards quality criteria for regional public health reporting: concept mapping with Dutch experts.

"Conflicts of interest : None declared."

"Funding ZonMw, The Netherlands organization for health research and development, as part of the Academic Centres for Public Health Programme (Grant no. 7160.0001). Conflicts of interest: None declared. Key pointsUsing concept mapping with Dutch experts, a theoretical framework was developed for assessing and improving the quality of regional public health reporting in The Netherlands.The final concept map consisted of 97 criteria, grouped into 13 clusters, and plotted in two dimensions: ‘product’, ranging from ‘production’ to ‘content’ and ‘context’, ranging from ‘science’ to ‘policy’.The clusters and criteria in the concept map can be used by the producers of regional public health reports as a checklist for improving the quality of their reports, for greater policy impact and for the benefit of evidence-based local public health policy.Further work should translate domains and criteria into measurable indicators for evaluating regional public health reports."