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Table 1 Description of the health product profile characteristics contained in the Health Product Profile Directory (please note, not all characteristics apply to all profiles)

From: Analysis of the Health Product Profile Directory — a new tool to inform priority-setting in global public health

Profile characteristic

Example descriptions

Document title

A description of the health product profile, including product type, target disease and/or health condition for a target population or geographic location

Author

The lead organisation that developed and published the health profile. When a profile was published in a journal, the main institutional affiliation of the corresponding author was chosen

WHO

A check-box to enable quick separation of WHO-authored health product profiles from those authored by others

Diseases

One or more diseases and/or health conditions (e.g. reproductive health) targeted by the product

Product type

Short-description of the product type: diagnostic, drug, vaccine, digital health, drug regimen, injectable/implant, not defined. As the directory content grows, these definitions will expand

Year published

The year the profile document was published

Status

Active: the profile is still considered relevant

Archive: the profile is no longer relevant. In the Health Product Profile Directory, profiles older than 5 years from the current date are considered archive

Indication

The purpose of the product, e.g. to provide immunisation against a given disease or to identify the presence of a given bacteria in drinking water

Intended use

Primarily used for diagnostics to separate triage, screening and more precise diagnosis

Target population

Age group or other specific subpopulation groups

Sample type and volume

Primarily for diagnostics describing the medium that is tested, e.g. blood, stool, saliva, drinking water

Use setting

Who would use the product and under what conditions, infrastructure requirements, e.g. trained nurse in a low-resource setting, primary healthcare facility, no cold chain, shelf life

Performance

Describes for diagnostics: specificity, sensitivity, reproducibility, robustness, time to result, nature of result, qualitative or quantitative

Efficacy

For drugs and drug regimens: the clinical characteristics, dosing, pharmaco-dynamics, rate of onset of action, interaction with other therapeutics, etc.

For vaccines: expected efficacy, duration, reversibility, strain coverage, interaction with other vaccines, etc.

Safety

For drugs, drug regimens and vaccines: clinical safety and tolerability, safety monitoring requirements, contra-indications and relation to specific population types, e.g. infants, pregnant women, during breast-feeding

Comments

Additional comments not able to be categorized above

Document url

Ideally, an archive providing a permanent url where the full document is published openly on line

Contact email

A contact email for further information