Oromia Police College

Collecting, Maintaining and Utilizing Community Health Data

By Mohammed Wabe (BSC, MPH candidate)
 This module includes the following Learning
Guides
 
I. Plan and prepare the necessary
resources for data collection
II. Collect, compile, interpret and utilize
necessary health data
III. Prepare and submit reports 
IV. Take intervention measures accordingly
 Plan and prepare the necessary
Instruction Sheet-1
Resources for data collection
 
This learning guide is developed to provide you
the necessary information regarding the
following content coverage and topics –
• Definition of terms
• Plan and prepare for data collection
 Cont’d
This guide will also assist you to attain the learning outcome
stated in the cover page. Specifically, upon completion of
this Learning Guide, you will be able to  
• prepare questionnaire
• Pretest, modify and amend questionnaire
• Train necessary personnel on data collection procedures
• Identify the necessary equipment/materials to execute
data collection
• Inform Members of community about data collection
dates and time
• Invite community leaders to support data collection
process
 Definition of terms
Data
consists of facts.
Facts are observations or measurements about
the world.
For example, today is Sunday, the patient‘s blood
pressure is 125/70mmHg‘ or Aspirin is a NSAID‘
 Definition of terms…
Information
 Information is processed data of meaningful value, enabling a
decision to be taken.
 Example 42 degree celsius , when we realize that it is the
temperature reading of a patient in degree Celsius, we have some
information about the status of the patient‘s health.
 By the way, this patient‘s temperature is much higher than the
average, which indicates danger and request for action.
 This information then enables a decision to be taken about the
patient.
 Health information includes information gathered on individuals from
their birth to their death and can range from the individual patient
record to aggregate data on a patient population that can span the
whole world.
 Types of health care data
1 Clinical data – most common type of health information
– signs, symptoms, diagnoses, impressions, treatments,
and outcome of the care process.
2 Epidemiological data – used to describe health related
issues – such as disease trends and events, used to
inform the public and to generate action.
3 Demographic data – statistical information about a
population – age, place of residence, gender, and so on.
4 Financial data – data about payments, salaries, wages,
and other money related aspects of care and
treatment.
 Cont’d…
5. Research data – collected as part of care and
used in research for generating knowledge about
health related areas, such as in clinical trials.
6. Reference data – collected and maintained by
health institutions for use in the system, including
formulary for pharmacists, care-plan for nurses,
protocols, clinical alerts and reminders.
7. Coded data – data that have been translated into
standard nomenclature of classification so that
they can be aggregated, analyzed, and compared .
 Importance of Data
 
1. Importance of Data management and record-keeping:

 Forms the essential basis of monitoring,

implementation and evaluation.
 They safeguard against violations of rights.
 To ensure transparency, accountability and follow-up
where necessary.
 Help to stimulate / improve the collection of reliable
statistical data for the child justice system as a whole.
 Importance of data…
2. Importance for Monitoring purpose: 
• To ensure the efficient and effective running of a project or
programme.
• It ensures progress towards goals.
• It is necessary to ensure that a project or programme is held
accountable to its beneficiaries and donors (including tax payers
if funded from public sources).
• It helps to identify problems from an early stage
• If done well it can contribute positively to team morale and
foster an atmosphere of transparency and professionalism.
• It can build public and political support for a programme and
answer stakeholders‘ questions.
 Plan to data collection
Introduction to data collection 
• Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information
• Data collection is a crucial part in the planning and implementation
process.
• If the data collection has been superficial, biased or incomplete, data
analysis becomes difficult, and the report will be of poor quality.
• A formal data collection process is necessary as it ensures that the
data gathered are both defined and accurate.
• This way, subsequent decisions based on arguments embodied in the
findings are made using valid data.
• The process provides both a baseline from which to measure and in
certain cases an indication of what to improve.
 Steps of Planning for Data Collection

1. Select what to measure

2. Develop operational definitions
3. Identify data sources
4. Prepare data collection plan 
5. Implement & refine plan
Steps of Planning for Data Collection…
1. Select what to measure: 
• In selecting what to measure, focus on the key questions you
are trying to answer or the key issues you are trying to resolve.
• What are the established measures of performance for the
process?
• How do you know if the process is successful?
• Do you have any service level agreements (SLA‘s) for the
process, and if so, how are those evaluated?
• Ideally, all metrics identified on the project charter would be
Included in this plan, as would any supporting metrics for
those identified.
Steps of Planning for Data Collection…

2. Develop operational definitions:

• Develop a common definition for the metric to
be evaluated, being specific about items to be
measured and any conditions that need to be
applied to the plan.
• The definition must be agreed up on by
everyone involved in the collection of data and
should be tested prior to the implementation of
the plan.
 Steps of Planning for Data Collection…
3. Identify data sources:
• Identify the data sources that will be used for the collection of the
data
a. Primary Data:-
 are those data, which are collected by the investigator himself for
the purpose of a specific inquiry or study.
 Such data are original in character and are mostly generated by
surveys conducted by individuals or research institutions.
 The first hand information obtained by the investigator is more
reliable and accurate
 It permits explanation of questions concerning difficult subject
matter.
 Cont’d …
b. Secondary Data: -
 When an investigator uses data, which have already been
collected by others, such data are called "Secondary Data".
 The secondary data can be obtained from journals,
reports, government publications, publications of
professionals and research organizations.
 Secondary data are less expensive to collect both in
money and time.
 These data can also be better utilized and sometimes the
quality of such data may be better because these might
have been collected by persons who were specially trained
for that purpose.
 Cont’d…
4. Prepare data collection plan:
• Document the plan for collecting the data identified
using a Data Collection Plan.
• Identify the following information for each metric:
 Name
 operational definition
 data source
 collection method and
 owner.
 Cont’d…
5. Implement & refine plan: 
• Execute the plan.
• Ideally start with a small pilot test of the plan
and then review and revise as needed.
 Developing data collection plan…

First write down a statement of your question.

Keep it simple
Pay attention to both quantitative and
qualitative data
Schedule time to organize data
Discuss the data with critical friends and seek
technical assistance.
Cont’d…
 Questionnaire as a data collection tool
• Questionnaires are also forms in which set of
questions is used.
• Very often they are several pages and can contain
tables, plain questions and spaces where respondents
or people being asked questions are filling in their in
responses.
• This is considered gathering primary data.
• The use of questionnaires is the most common
method of obtaining a structured set of data and is
frequently used in surveys and other research designs.
 Questionnaire…

Questionnaires may be classified as:

i. Structured/standardized questionnaire 
ii. Unstructured questionnaire
 Questionnaire…
i. Structured/standardized questionnaire
• When those definite, concrete and
preordained questions with additional
questions are limited to clarification of
inadequate response or to elicit more detailed
responses
 Questionnaire…
ii. Unstructured questionnaire
• When the respondent is given the opportunity
to answer his/her own terms and frame of
reference (often generates qualitative data
such as opinions, themes, and feelings).
 Types of Questions

• Developing questions for a questionnaire can

be difficult and time consuming.
• Care must be taken in developing the
questions to be asked.
• Should questions be open- ended or closed
ended 
 Questionnaire…

a. Open-ended questions 
• Open-ended questions permit free responses that should be recorded in the
respondent‘s own words.
• The respondent is not given any possible answers to choose from.
• Such questions are useful to obtain information on: 
– Facts with which the researcher is not very familiar
– Opinions, attitudes, and suggestions of informants
– Sensitive issues.
• Can you describe exactly what the traditional birth attendant did when your
labor started?
• What do you think are the reasons for a high drop-out rate of village health
committee members?
• What would you do if you noticed that your daughter (school girl) had a sexual
relationship with a teacher? 
 Questionnaire…

b. Closed ended Questions

•  Closed questions offer a list of possible options or
answers from which the respondents must choose.
• When designing closed questions one should try to:
– Offer a list of options that are exhaustive and mutually
exclusive
– Keep the number of options as few as possible. Closed
questions are useful if the range of possible responses is
known.
 Requirements of questionnaires
•  Open format questions that are without a predetermined
set of responses.
• Closed format questions that take the form of a multiple-
choice question
• Writing the Questionnaire, points to be considered when
writing
 Clarity (question has the same meaning for all respondents)
 Phrasing (short and simple sentences, only one piece of
information at a time, avoid negatives if possible, ask precise
questions, in line with respondent level of knowledge…)
 Sensitive question: avoid questions that could be
embarrassing to respondents.
 Questionnaire pilot testing

• The major challenge in questionnaire design is

to make it clear to all respondents.
• In-order to identify and solve the confusing
points, we need to pre-test the questionnaire.
• During the pilot trial: the questionnaire
participants should be randomly selected from
the study population.