ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Digital Data SolutionsVital Strategies is collaborating with the Shanghai Center for Disease Control to produce a public portal on nutrition and obesity patterns in the city. Not only does the portal provide access to nutrition and obesity data, it also offers recommendations on how citizens can improve their nutrition. Vital Strategies is also working with SCDC to create tools to provide access to data collected from surveys on individual risk factors, including smoking and hypertension.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Data ReportsVital Strategies has been working with Brazil’s Ministry of Health to expand Saúde Brasil (the annual review of the nation’s health) to include state-by-state health situation assessments for the first time. To complement this expanded report, Vital Strategies used our Portal Development Platform to create a portal hosted on the Ministry of Health website that allows users to obtain: 1) time trend and sub-group comparisons in a state for one specific cause of death and 2) the top 10 causes of death for each state.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Analytics for Public Health PracticeColombia’s high-quality national Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have been under-utilized as a data source for health analyses in the country. Vital Strategies developed a hands-on 7-day workshop for 11 epidemiologists, statisticians and analysts representing Colombia’s Division of Epidemiology and Demography and the National Statistics Office with the goal of teaching participants how to better understand, analyze and use the DHS. The workshop consisted of didactic presentations, group work and individual exercises.

Participants were assigned three teams charged with conducting analysis to address a specific question of interest to the Ministry and prepare a publishable report in the three months after the workshop. The selected analysis projects were: factors associated with deferred maternity (inequalities in access to contraception), analysis of the internal quality of maternal mortality data for estimating maternal mortality ratios, and the relationship between sexual violence and fertility.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Analytics for Public Health PracticeVital Strategies has worked with the National Statistics Office leadership to conceptualize the purpose, mandate, and objectives of the unit and to share best practices for data integration, hosting, analysis and use. The observatory is establishing a new data management and analysis model that includes administrative data, thematic surveys, and census data related to health, social characteristics, and living conditions. This system will allow the development of products, both descriptive and analytical, and provide relevant input into government health and social policies including poverty and living conditions in Ecuador, maternal mortality (a method for calculating and revising estimates of historic trends), adolescent pregnancy (a method for calculating and revising estimates of historic trends) and childhood malnutrition prevalence estimates for small geographic areas.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: CRVS Data UseThe government has been steadily improving CRVS data collection but had focused less on building capacity toward effectively analyzing and using the data to support public health policy and practice. To address this, Vital Strategies and the University of Melbourne delivered a CRVS Data Use Workshop for 41 technical analysts and communication staff from the Ghana Health Service (GHS), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), and the Births and Deaths Registry (BDR). Areas of focus of the workshop included basic and advanced analytic measures, completeness and data quality, life tables, comparing mortality and identifying inequalities, and communication and dissemination of vital statistics.

On the last day of the workshop, a select team met to discuss quality and analytic concerns related to data sources for CRVS-related Sustainable Development Goal indicators and informed the government’s current indicator tracking plan.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Data for Decision MakersVital Strategies worked for several months with Malawi to finalize the country’s National Health Indicators, after several years of work by various partners to develop them. Vital Strategies: met with programs to finalize a list of national health indicators, definitions, data sources, baselines and targets; mapped different data sources for each indicator to ensure better use of data and triangulation of data, as well as identifying duplication within the health information system; defined the exact calculations to be used in the DHIS2 system, to ensure that the indicators displayed through DHIS2 are calculated correctly; and provided detailed guidance on the interpretation of each indicator.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Organizational DesignA team from Vital Strategies met with key Ministry officials at the central and regional level to understand the current status of data use and the challenges of effective use of data in Morocco. Out of these meetings, the Data Impact team helped develop a work plan for improved data collection, analysis, use and dissemination in the country. Vital Strategies is since helping support Morocco’s 12 newly established regional "health observatories” monitoring population health in those areas, as well as advising on the design of a national health observatory and contributing to the development of a national strategic plan on noncommunicable diseases.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Data for Decision MakersThe city of Mumbai, India sought to improve the way that the government uses already-collected data to monitor and evaluate the success of their diabetes screening and treatment program. Vital Strategies worked with Mumbai to create two different types of diabetes indicators: those that can be compiled based on data already reported to the Mumbai Department of Public Health and those that can be compiled based on data collected in clinic registers.

Vital Strategies held in-depth consultations with program staff on their needs and visited a public dispensary to better understand types of data collected on their registers and on the reporting forms they send to the government. Two sets of screening and treatment indicators were proposed and then adapted based on their review by the Executive Health Officer (head of the Department of Public Health).

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Data to PolicyAs part of the DIP in Myanmar, Vital Strategies in collaboration with Ministry of Health and Sports in Myanmar, held a two-day Data Leadership workshop in Naypyidaw. The workshop brought together participants from Department of Public Health, University of Public Health, Department of Medical Services, Department of Medical Research, and Department of Human Resources for Health.

The objectives of the workshop were to:

• Build competencies in leveraging data to develop, advocate for, and execute successful strategies to advance public health.
• Outline plans to design processes, structure and/or systems to increase the Ministry’s ability to translate data into informed actions and establish formal and informal methods to hardwire robust data use widely across a Ministry and among its diverse stakeholders.

During the workshop, participants engaged in individual and group exercises, discussions and presentations aimed at honing their skills promoting data as public health executives and developing best practices for fostering a data use culture. The need for a ministry-wide data review process was identified and other planning activities were undertaken.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: CRVS Data UseThe CRVS Data Analysis course, developed jointly by Vital Strategies and the University of Melbourne, was conducted in Spanish with two separate groups: regional statisticians and regional epidemiologists. The 60 participants included staff from all 30 of Peru’s regions. The course (1.5 days for regional statisticians and 2.5 days for regional epidemiologists) was an applied training that promoted analysis and development of data products (reports or briefs) to guide public health decision-making.

Region-specific mortality databases were provided to participants for analysis. In order to receive completion certificates, in the two months following the workshop, participants received mentoring to complete an analysis of mortality in their region. Epidemiologists also presented their findings and recommendations to their regional health directors.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Data to PolicyIn the Philippines, the Department of Health sought to strengthen its department’s capacity to use data to drive policy through the Data to Policy program. The policy recommendations made by one participant during the training, led to improved water quality throughout the country, and those made by another are leading to better data collection on maternal mortality.

Water quality issue were analyzed and measures were recommended to improve drinking water quality. In response to the policy recommendations, officials, including those in the office of the Philippine President, supported measures to improve drinking water quality. Before these recommendations, water quality testing was limited to four biologic parameters and there was no active monitoring of test results, now water service providers test for 10 parameters that includes chemicals like arsenic.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Journalist/Communication Staff TrainingJournalists from Rwanda’s top media outlets met for two days to learn how to interpret data from large national and international data sources and academic journal articles, and also how to interview topical experts. All journalists who attended the workshop developed and pitched health stories rich in data which were later published by their media outlets. In addition, senior public health officials in Rwanda learned how to communicate data in a 2.5 day interactive workshop similar to the one held in Mumbai.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Data to PolicyVital Strategies held a workshop on the Economics of Harmful Products. Our economic consultants trained a multi-sectoral cohort of stakeholders in policy-relevant advanced analytic skills. Verité, the non-profit think tank, used the training to analyze the economics of the tobacco industry in Sri Lanka. In observance of “World No Tobacco Day,” Verite then worked with local media to share their analysis on tobacco policy and cigarette taxation. Major media outlets ran stories with the headlines: “The Hidden Side of Cigarette Pricing” and “Who’s responsible for ‘Alternative Facts’ on tobacco taxation?” Verité staff continue to use their new analytic skills to drive policy discussions on cigarette’s affordability.

ACTIVITY IN DEPTH: Institutional Data Use PolicyVital Strategies assisted the Ministry of Health in developing pivotal policy for their health information system, after ministry leadership and a newly drafted national data dissemination strategy noted a lack of a “national policy on data ownership, flow, dissemination and information use.”

Vital Strategies first reviewed existing policies in Tanzania to understand the current policy environment and reviewed similar health information systems policies in other countries. Vital Strategies trained Ministry of Health leadership to work together to conduct a needs assessment with Ministry of Health officials and other health stakeholders to determine how health information system policy guidelines would benefit them and to ensure eventual buy-in with the policy. Based on this process, Vital Strategies drafted a proposed new policy and conducted a stakeholder meeting to review the draft policy.