{"id":82712,"date":"2016-11-24T02:47:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T00:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/africas-health-wont-improve-without-reliable-data-and-collaboration-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2016-11-24T02:47:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T00:47:37","slug":"africas-health-wont-improve-without-reliable-data-and-collaboration-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/africas-health-wont-improve-without-reliable-data-and-collaboration-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa’s health won’t improve without reliable data and collaboration | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa’s health won’t improve without reliable data and collaboration<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Children play alongside stagnant water and rubbish in Lagos, Nigeria.<\/span> George Esiri\/Reuters<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that \u201call people are born equal in dignity and rights\u201d. Sadly, this statement doesn\u2019t reflect billions of people\u2019s daily lives. Health is one of the areas in which many \u2013 if not most \u2013 people have no real rights.<\/p>\n

Social determinants of health, as defined by the World Health Organisation, are \u201cthe conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life\u201d. These systems and forces include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms and policies, and political systems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear, then, that social determinants can negatively affect health. The poor are denied basic needs that would keep them healthy: access to good quality food, shelter, clean water, sanitation and proper clothing. They have limited access to medical care, education and finance. <\/p>\n

All of these drive health inequity \u2013 systematic disparities in health between social groups who have different levels of underlying social advantage or disadvantage. <\/p>\n

Africa\u2019s young scientists know that health inequity poses a major obstacle to improving population health and well-being. That\u2019s why representatives from some of the continent\u2019s Young Academies of Science met in Johannesburg in early November 2016 to discuss the issue. The young academies represented at the meeting were from Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya, Senegal and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

We discussed a number of problems that cause health inequity in Africa. Then we collectively drew up some solutions. The full statement has been made available online, but here we\u2019d like to focus on two issues: data limitations and an inability to scale up health innovations.<\/p>\n

If these can be systematically addressed, we believe that the continent will take great strides towards keeping its populations healthy.<\/p>\n

Data limitations<\/h2>\n

Africa has a data problem. This is true in many sectors. When it comes to health there\u2019s both a lack of basic population data about disease and an absence of information about what impact, if any, interventions involving social determinants of health \u2013 housing, nutrition and the like \u2013 are having.<\/p>\n

Simply put, researchers often don\u2019t know who is sick or what people are being exposed to that, if addressed, could prevent disease and improve health. They cannot say if poor sanitation is the biggest culprit, or if substandard housing in a particular region is to blame. They don\u2019t have the data that explains which populations are most vulnerable. <\/p>\n

These data are required to inform development of innovative interventions that apply a \u201cHealth in All Policies\u201d approach to address social determinants of health and improve health equity.<\/p>\n

To address this, health data need to be integrated with social determinant data about areas like food, housing, and physical activity or mobility. Even where population data are available, they are not always reliable. There\u2019s often an issue of compatability: different sectors collect different kinds of information using varying methodologies. <\/p>\n

Different sectors also use different indicators to collect information on the same social determinant of health. This makes data integration challenging.<\/p>\n

Without clear, focused, reliable data it\u2019s difficult to understand what a society\u2019s problems are and what specific solutions \u2013 which may lie outside the health sector \u2013 might be suitable for that unique context.<\/p>\n

Scaling up innovations<\/h2>\n

Some remarkable work is being done to tackle Africa\u2019s health problems. This ranges from technological innovations to harnessing indigenous knowledge for change. Both approaches are vital. But it\u2019s hard for these to be scaled up either in terms of numbers or reach. <\/p>\n

This boils down to a lack of funding or a lack of access to funding. Too many potentially excellent projects remain stuck at the pilot phase, which has limited value for ordinary people.<\/p>\n

Young scientists\u2019 recommendations<\/h2>\n

We emerged from our meeting with a number of recommendations. Governments, researchers, universities and research institutions and science academies will need to work together to implement these.<\/p>\n

Governments need to develop health equity surveillance systems to overcome the current lack of data. It\u2019s also crucial that governments integrate and monitor health and social determinants of health indicators in one central system. This would provide a better understanding of health inequity in a given context. <\/p>\n

For this to happen, governments must work with public and private sector stakeholders and nongovernmental organisations \u2013 not just in health, but beyond it so that social determinants of health can be better measured and captured.<\/p>\n

The data that already exists at sub-national, national, regional and continental level mustn\u2019t just be brushed aside. It should be archived and digitised so that it isn\u2019t lost.<\/p>\n

Researchers have a role to play here. They have to harmonise and be innovative in the methodologies they use for data collection. If researchers can work together across the breadth of sectors and disciplines that influence health, important information won\u2019t slip through the cracks.<\/p>\n

When it comes to scaling up innovation, governments need to step up to the plate. It\u2019s crucial that they support successful health innovations, whether these are rooted in indigenous knowledge or are new technologies. And since \u2013 as we\u2019ve already shown \u2013 health issues aren\u2019t the exclusive preserve of the health sector, governments should look to different sectors and innovative partnerships to generate support and funding. <\/p>\n

A single thread runs through these recommendations: the notion of shared learning across Africa. As young researchers from a range of disciplines and countries, we have learned first hand through our own work and our academies that collaboration is crucial.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why another of our recommendations is that research institutions in Africa should produce and share documents that outline their best practices and their mistakes. Others can then learn from the good and avoid the bad. In this way, experts on the continent can learn from each other \u2013 and find common approaches to improving millions of people\u2019s daily lives and health.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Tolullah Oni receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Fadzai Mukora Mutseyekwa works on a USAID funded project. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Mariamawit Yonathan Yeshak works for Addis Ababa University. She receives funding from International Science Program, Uppsala University, Sweden. She is affiliated with Ethiopian Young Academy of Sciences. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
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Africa’s health won’t improve without reliable data and collaboration: Children play alongside stagnant water and rubbish in Lagos, Nigeria. George Esiri\/Reuters The Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that \u201call people are born equal in dignity and rights\u201d. Sadly, this statement doesn\u2019t reflect billions of people\u2019s daily lives. Health is one of the areas in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4635,5081,8890,4732,140,3395,12763,6092,4802],"class_list":{"0":"post-82712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africas","8":"tag-collaboration","9":"tag-conversation","10":"tag-data","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-improve","13":"tag-reliable","14":"tag-without","15":"tag-wont","16":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}