Standards for Public Health Information Services in Activated Health Clusters and Other Humanitarian Health Coordination Mechanisms

On the field, Health Clusters coordination staff have generally been short-staffed and their planning and day-to-day work have been dictated by perceived priorities of different stakeholders, rather than objective needs for public health information. There appears to be an increasing emphasis on cumbersome annual or bi-annual data collection rounds (e.g. for multi-sector rapid assessment or health resources availability mapping: see below), rather than ongoing, prospective generation of information for real-time action through lighter systems that involve HC partners in both data collection and interpretation of findings.

The above challenges partly reflect a lack of realistic standards and guidance for PHIS in activated clusters, meaning that each HC works in relative isolation and has to develop priorities and PHIS solutions locally, often from scratch. While top-line processes for public health data collection have been put forward by WHO’s Emergency Response Framework and the GHC’s own Health Cluster Guide; this document is structured around some of the following areas of PHIS which have not previously been detailed:

• Which public health information services (and, consequently, information products) should be expected of an activated HC, and who in the HC should be responsible for different steps in their delivery;
• Which specific methods, software applications and tools should be used to deliver these services;
• How quickly and with what frequency of update each service should be delivered in different crisis scenarios;
• What staffing and other resources should be made available to activated HCs in order to successfully discharge the PHIS function;
• Which PHIS-related technical competencies cluster staff should display when deploying into a field HC role, and should therefore be a basis for recruitment, professional development and performance management.

This document seeks to address, and is structured along the above areas, by laying out the first set of globally valid standards, with locally appropriate guidance, for PHIS in activated health clusters and other crisis coordination mechanisms.