Catherine Arsenault at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the U.S. and colleagues will measure the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated containment policies such as curfews on the quality of health care in seven countries and the rates of mortality from non-COVID conditions. They have extracted data from health management information systems spanning two years from Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Laos, Mexico, Nepal, and South Africa. They will first clean the data and then apply an analytical tool called segmented regression analysis to assess the effect of the pandemic on health service delivery, such as the provision of certain preventive and curative services, and use a statistical technique called difference-in-differences estimations to assess the effect of containment policies on healthcare demand, such as patient appointments. This will help countries to address gaps in their health care systems and plan recovery strategies for missed health care.
Publications
| Title | Journal | Date |
Driver Project | Abstract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
PLOS Global Public Health |
Sept 2o22 | DP – REHCORD | The spread of COVID-19 and associated deaths have remained low in Ethiopia. However, the pandemic could pose a public health crisis indirectly through disruptions in essential health services… |
| Overcoming disruptions in essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico
|
BMJ Global Health |
Mar 2022 | DP-REHCORD | Significant disruptions in health services during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) to implement the National Strategy for Health Services Recovery (NHSR strategy) to ensure resumption of essential health services provided to almost 68 million IMSS affiliates… |
|
COVID-19 and resilience of healthcare systems in ten countries
|
Nature Medicine |
Mar 2022 | DP-REHCORD | Declines in health service use during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic could have important effects on population health. In this study, we used an interrupted time series design to assess the immediate effect of the pandemic on 31 health services… |
| Disruption in essential health services in Mexico during COVID-19: an interrupted time series analysis of health information system data | BMJ Global Health | Aug 2021 | DP-REHCORD | The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health systems around the world. The objectives of this study are to estimate the overall effect of the pandemic on essential health service use and outcomes in Mexico, describe observed and predicted trends in services over 24 months, and to estimate the number of visits lost through December 2020 |
To measure the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated containment policies such as curfews on health care in seven countries by using health management information systems to evaluate the quality of care and mortality rates from non-COVID conditions.
Video transcription
So the main goals of our project are first and foremost to estimate the impact of the pandemic on healthcare utilisation on quality of care and on non COVID mortality. A second aim is to develop methods for cleaning these data and to in general share experience working with health management information systems.
In terms of data we are working with 10 country partners, and we are using data from health information systems. In six countries the data are coming directly from the DHS to platform and in four other countries, we’ve extracted the data from various administrative sources. These data relate to the volume of health services that have been provided by health facilities before and during the pandemic and on the number of deaths from non COVID conditions.
In terms of impact, we’re hoping that our project will be helpful in designing strategies for compensating for missed healthcare during the pandemic. Also for planning for future health system investments, and also to make health systems better prepared to face the next pandemic or the next crisis.
Our results should be available very shortly. Our first multi-country paper is already under review and it looked at the impact of the pandemic on healthcare utilisation in 10 countries.
One priority for the field of health data science right now, in my opinion is to expand the use of routine health information system data for both research and for policymaking. I think it is urgent to start making better use of the existing data system