Activity 12: Health and Demographic Surveillance

PI: Dr. Peter Kim Streatfield

Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS)—which covers a population of about 225,000 and provides data necessary to plan, conduct, and evaluate various types of public-health research.
Access to information on demographic events in the current database has been improved. A long-term workbook, developed in Excel, houses all demographic events indexed by area (ICDDR,B area and government services area), year, sex, and age-group. This format pro¬vides a user-friendly data-management tool to facilitate inquiry (hence research) of the Matlab HDSS data. Access to the workbook is now possible through the Centre’s website. The workbook was launched at the time of the 40th Anniversary of HDSS celebration in March 2007.

A second workbook is currently being developed to house data relating to mortality. This workbook will accommodate data for all deaths from specific causes and appropriately combined causes, and indexed by area, year, sex, and age. In addition to facilitating inquiry into causes of death by any or all of the above dimensions, the mortality workbook may also be used for undertaking research on the burden of diseases.

Both the workbooks have been constructed to hold data to 2020, thereby providing an excellent tool for monitoring progress in Matlab towards MDG 4 and 5. An additional feature of the workbook is the applicability of the structure and function to similar other data collections, such as data from other surveillance sites of the Centre.

Collaborating Institutions:

• National Institute of Population Research and Training (NIPORT)

Results:

• Producing regular accurate demographic and health data for rural Bangladesh;
• Testing new electronic PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) technology for data collection, OCR (Optical Character Reader) scanning for data entry;
• Providing improved global internet access to longitudinal surveillance data;
• All HDSS (Health and Demographic Surveillance System) reports since 1966 available globally on internet; and
• HDSU (Health and Demographic Surveillance Unit) staff active in NIPORT technical committees for DHS (Demographic and Health Survey), Urban Health Survey, BMMS (Bangladesh Maternal Mortality, and UESD (Utility of Essential Service Delivery). With BBS committees on Life Expectancy, and SVRP (Sample Vital Registration Project).