Vadu Rural Health Program

Health and Demographic Surveillance System
(HDSS, Vadu )

The word "Demographic Surveillance" means to keep close track of the population dynamics. Vadu HDSS deals with keeping track of health issues and demographic changes in Vadu rural health program (VRHP) area. It is one of the most promising projects of National relevance that aims at establishing a quasi-experimental intervention research setting with objectives

The HDSS includes 22 villages from Shirur and Haweli blocks in the VRHP settings and a comparison area covering 18 villages from Khed block. It serves to monitor trends in demographic and health indicators like crude birth rate, crude death rate, migration rate, maternal mortality rate, infant, under five, neonatal, post-neonatal, early neonatal, still birth and perinatal mortality rates; as also indicators of fertility like age specific and Total Fertility Rate. One of the many innovative features of HDSS Vadu is surveillance through network of local people envisaging a sustainable surveillance system. Village level informants (VLI's) and Village level Data Collectors collect data of all sorts. VLIs keep a track of vital events viz. death, birth, marriage and migration. The Surveillance System is a combination of both passive (reporting of events by village level informants, Gram Panchayat records) and active surveillance (six monthly census and health worker visits to households).

Data base created under HDSS Vadu is used by research studies carried out in HDSS Vadu. Major output we get from such type of surveillance system is the periodic demographic statistics to see the changes in demographic pattern of the area. Which would help to formulate the health strategies for the hospital as a service provider. In addition various research studies are carried out along with regular surveillance such as Verbal Autopsy survey, non-communicable disease risk factor Surveillance, Fertility surveillance which would directly reflect on health related issues of the population.

A range of tables store information in the database and are linked together to form the relational structure. The following tables exist:

•   The Baseline table records the details of each individual interviewed during the start of first census. Examples of data fields: 'date of observation' and 'name of fieldworker'
•   The Individuals table records the basic information about each individual in the population. Examples of data fields: 'First Name', 'Middle Name', 'Last Name', 'Date of Birth' , 'Gender', 'Occupation', 'Education', and 'Marital Status'
•   The Locations table records the residence place at which an individual is located. A location is a physical structure that has a corresponding latitude and longitude.
•   The household Head change table records the change in the household head which keep the information about start and end of the episode .
•   The Marital Status records the episode of an individual in a union another individual. This table records the date when a union starts, the event that started it (e.g., marriage, re-marriage), the date when a union ends, and the event that ends it (e.g., divorce, separation or death). The Union Episodes table links to the Marriage Attributes table which records details about marriages and informal unions.
•   There are several 'Event' tables, which record the details of the demographic events which bring an individual into the database or remove an individual from the database. A few key variables are recorded on each event of which a very important one is the date of the event. These tables include:
  o Pregnancies
  o Births
  o In-Migrations
  o Out-Migrations
•   Other related tables include the Verbal Autopsy table which records information used to determine cause of death.