Nordberg E, Oranga H
Department of International Health and Social Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
East Afr Med J. 1996 Jun;73(6):364-9.
Health care planning and management in sub-Saharan Africa is being decentralised, and health information systems need to meet new needs. This study in rural Kenya explored the feasibility of a cross-sectional household health interview survey to help district-level health planning. Heads of 390 households were interviewed about health-related factors like housing standard, water supply, sanitation, recent illness, and health care use. Half of all households lived on farming. Access to water sources was poor, but latrine coverage was high. Of all disease episodes 26% were respiratory, 18% gastrointestinal and 10.5% malaria. Rates of illness episodes were low (1.0 day of illness/person/30 days), and 40% of episodes were taken to a modern service provider like a dispensary, health centre or hospital. The survey generated much information on household characteristics, illness episodes and action taken, data that was not available through the routine health information system. Survey costs were estimated at 15 US cents per resident in the project area, a large proportion of which was absorbed by computerized data processing, but may be reduced to about half. If conducted once every three or four years, a survey of this kind would be affordable within the ordinary recurrent district health budget and would provide useful planning and management information.
撒哈拉以南非洲地区的医疗保健规划与管理正在进行权力下放，卫生信息系统需要满足新的需求。这项在肯尼亚农村地区开展的研究探讨了通过横断面家庭健康访谈调查来辅助地区层面医疗规划的可行性。研究人员对390户家庭的户主进行了访谈，询问了诸如住房标准、供水、卫生设施、近期患病情况以及医疗保健利用等与健康相关的因素。所有家庭中有一半以务农为生。水源获取情况较差，但厕所覆盖率较高。在所有疾病发作中，26%为呼吸道疾病，18%为胃肠道疾病，10.5%为疟疾。疾病发作率较低（每人每30天患病1.0天），40%的发作情况会被送至诸如诊疗所、健康中心或医院等现代服务提供者处。该调查产生了大量有关家庭特征、疾病发作及采取的行动的信息，而这些数据是常规卫生信息系统所无法提供的。据估计，项目地区每位居民的调查成本为15美分，其中很大一部分被计算机化数据处理所消耗，但成本可能会降至约一半。如果每三到四年进行一次此类调查，在地区卫生预算的常规经常性支出范围内是可以承受的，并且能提供有用的规划和管理信息。
