Institute Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Birzeit, West Bank, Palestine.
School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
PLoS One. 2024 Aug 22;19(8):e0307207. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307207. eCollection 2024.
Adolescents are a critical demographic facing unique health challenges who are further impacted in humanitarian settings. This article focuses on the urgent need for a structured health information system (HIS) to address the gaps in data availability and evidence-based interventions for adolescent health. The study aims to identify opportunities and challenges in utilizing the HIS to enhance adolescent health in the West Bank by gathering insights from healthcare providers.
Semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted with participants involved in the HIS regarding adolescent health in the West Bank. They were selected by purposive sampling. Nineteen interviews were conducted between July and October 2022, and thematic analysis was carried out using MAXQDA software.
The opportunities identified were the small-scale victories the participants described in building the HIS for adolescent health. These included institutional and individual capacity building, digitalizing parts of the HIS, connection fragmentation of adolescent health activities, multi-sectoral collaboration, reorienting services based on health information, working with limited resources, enhancing community engagement to encourage ownership and active participation, and taking strategic actions for adolescents for information. The challenges were the high workload of staff, lack of health information specialists, limited resources, lack of a unified system in data collection, lack of data on essential indicators, data quality, data sharing, and data sources and use.
This study showed the potential of the HIS with capacity building, digitization, and collaborative initiatives; it also suffers from issues like staff shortages, non-standardized data collection, and insufficient data for essential indicators. To maximize the impact of the HIS, urgent attention to staff shortages through comprehensive training programs, standardization of data collection systems, and development of a unified core indicator list for adolescent health is recommended. Embracing these measures will allow the HIS to provide evidence-based adolescent health programs, even in resource-constrained and complex humanitarian settings.
青少年是面临独特健康挑战的关键人群，在人道主义环境中受到的影响更大。本文重点关注构建结构化健康信息系统（HIS）的迫切需求，以解决青少年健康数据可用性和基于证据的干预措施方面的差距。本研究旨在通过从医疗保健提供者那里收集见解，确定在西岸利用 HIS 增强青少年健康的机会和挑战。
对参与西岸青少年健康 HIS 的参与者进行了半结构化关键知情人访谈。他们是通过目的性抽样选择的。2022 年 7 月至 10 月期间进行了 19 次访谈，并使用 MAXQDA 软件进行了主题分析。
参与者描述了在构建青少年健康 HIS 方面所取得的小胜利，这些机会包括机构和个人能力建设、数字化 HIS 的部分内容、青少年健康活动的联系碎片化、多部门合作、根据健康信息重新定位服务、利用有限资源、增强社区参与以鼓励所有权和积极参与，以及为青少年采取战略性行动获取信息。挑战包括工作人员的工作量大、缺乏健康信息专家、资源有限、数据收集缺乏统一系统、缺乏关键指标数据、数据质量、数据共享以及数据源和用途。
本研究表明 HIS 具有潜力，可以通过能力建设、数字化和合作举措来改善青少年健康，但也存在工作人员短缺、数据收集不规范以及关键指标数据不足等问题。为了最大程度地发挥 HIS 的影响力，建议通过全面的培训计划、数据收集系统的标准化以及为青少年健康制定统一的核心指标清单来解决工作人员短缺问题。采取这些措施将使 HIS 能够提供基于证据的青少年健康计划，即使在资源有限和复杂的人道主义环境中也是如此。
