In this article for The Wire, Harsh Vardhan Pachisia and Sharmadha Srinivasan, senior associates, and Anushka Bhansali, an intern, write about the importance of data in public health and ways in which this process can be improved.
Excerpts below:
“Collecting detailed vaccination data at the individual level is crucial in assessing vaccine coverage, evaluating immunisation programmes and facilitating future research on disease surveillance. For instance, in response to the SARS outbreak, Canada began developing a network of immunisation registries. However, data collection is the starting point, not the endgame. Any relevant information (with the necessary privacy safeguards) needs to be shared openly with the public in an open access format. Doing so would not only improve transparency and accountability but also assist in knowledge building by researchers and inform private sector innovation.
This can be seen in the case of Israel during the current pandemic. By running the world’s fastest vaccine campaign, it has provided researchers valuable data points for modelling how mass inoculation would be able to bend the trajectory of the pandemic in other countries. On the other hand, India is lagging behind with various issues with data sharing from the Co-win application. For instance, data formats of developed APIs are known to change regularly, making them difficult for third parties to collaborate and build upon the existing information. Moreover, the information regarding COVID-19 cases as well as on the vaccination drive is currently on two different portals, which makes it hard to ascertain a complete picture.”
Read the full article here.
Note: This work was done by the author/s when they were a part of the IDFC Institute and is republished here with permission.
