Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/125910
Title: National health examination surveys ; a source of critical data
Authors: Margozzini, Paula
Tolonen, Hanna
Bernabe-Ortiz, Antonio
Cuschieri, Sarah
Donfrancesco, Chiara
Palmieri, Luigi
Sanchez-Romero, Luz Maria
Mindell, Jennifer S.
Oyebode, Oyinlola
Keywords: Periodic health examinations -- Data processing
Health surveys -- Evaluation
Public health -- Data processing
Artificial intelligence -- Medical applications
Health planning -- Quality Control
Issue Date: 2024
Publisher: World Health Organization
Citation: Margozzini, P., Tolonen, H., Bernabe-Ortiz, A., Cuschieri, S., Donfrancesco, C., Palmieri, L.,... Oyebode, O. (2024). National health examination surveys; a source of critical data. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 102(8), 588-599.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to contribute technical arguments to the debate about the importance of health examination surveys and their continued use during the post-pandemic health financing crisis, and in the context of a technological innovation boom that offers new ways of collecting and analysing individual health data (e.g. artificial intelligence). Technical considerations demonstrate that health examination surveys make an irreplaceable contribution to the local availability of primary health data that can be used in a range of further studies (e.g. normative, burden-of-disease, care cascade, cost and policy impact studies) essential for informing several phases of the health planning cycle (e.g. surveillance, prioritization, resource mobilization and policy development). Examples of the use of health examination survey data in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region (i.e. Finland, Italy, Malta and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and the WHO Region of the Americas (i.e. Chile, Mexico, Peru and the United States of America) are presented, and reasons why health provider-led data cannot replace health examination survey data are discussed (e.g. underestimation of morbidity and susceptibility to bias). In addition, the importance of having nationally representative random samples of the general population is highlighted and we argue that health examination surveys make a critical contribution to external quality control for a country’s health system by increasing the transparency and accountability of health spending. Finally, we consider future technological advances that can improve survey fieldwork and suggest ways of ensuring health examination surveys are sustainable in low-resource settings.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/125910
Appears in Collections:Scholarly Works - FacM&SAna

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
National health examination surveys a source of critical data 2024.pdf1.02 MBAdobe PDFView/Open


Items in OAR@UM are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.