HDSS profile: the Dande health and demographic surveillance system (Dande HDSS, Angola)

• Autor(a) principal: Rosário, Edite Vila Nova
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Costa, Diogo, Francisco, Diogo, Brito, Miguel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/7072
• topic: Epidemiology; Surveillance system; Angola; Província do Bengo

An HDSS aims to systematically and continuously monitor the dynamics of a specified population in a geographically defined area, which lacks an effective system for registering demographic information and vital events. An initial census defines the target population and later, through periodic updating rounds, births, deaths and migrations are monitored. The first HDSS was implemented in 1940 in South Africa. There are now around 50 known HDSS worldwide, with surveyed population ranging between 13 350 and 260 000 individuals; 39 sites are spread in Africa, none of them in Central Africa or closest to Angola. Angola faced a long period of civil war between 1975 and 2002, and most of the previous existing civil registration and other social infrastructures have been severely debilitated. With the massive displacement of people moving to escape the war, the conditions became adverse to keeping effective records of structures and population dynamics. In 2014, the country carried out the first national population census since the country’s independence (1975), and a large investment has been placed in civil registration infrastructures (particularly birth registration). However, the resources needed to implement an accurate and complete vital statistics system are not yet available.