Strengthening the Management of Immunization Data in the Americas

Start date: 23 October 2023
Termination: Date 24 November 2023

Participants: Argentina (1), Bolivia (1), Chile (4), Colombia (3), Costa Rica (1), Cuba (1) , Ecuador (1), El Salvador (1), Guatemala (3), Honduras(1), México (1), Nicaragua (2), Panamá (1), Paraguay (1), Perú(1) Republic Dominican (1), Uruguay (1), as well as the Special Program for Comprehensive Immunization (CIM) and Bogotá office of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Background:

The need to manage a large amount of data from nominal electronic immunization registries (EIRs) in immunization programs has become a significant challenge, made even more evident with the COVID-19 pandemic wherein health information systems made millions of registries available in a short time. Consolidating and analyzing data through electronic spreadsheets and traditional tabulators were insufficient, necessitating the use of more robust and versatile tools.

PAHO’s Technical Unit for Surveillance, Preparedness, and Response to Emergencies and Disasters and the Special Program for Comprehensive Immunization developed a course on the use of R - a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics (https://www.r-project.org/) - and its environment to analyze and understand data from immunization programs and generate a wide variety of statistical and graphic techniques, from the simplest to the most complex, considering that it is free and open-source software.

The course consisted of three modules with a total of 100 teaching hours divided into one week virtual and two weeks in person in the city of Bogota, Colombia, with participation from 25 data managers from 17 countries in the Region, plus 5 facilitators. During the course, participants grouped and prepared a report using the knowledge acquired in R, based on the information needs of the countries using data from the EIR and other data sources, developing the following topics:

1. Vaccination coverage in Nicaragua, comparing different denominator sources
2. COVID-19 vaccination among the HIV population of Uruguay
3. Progress of Mpox vaccination in Chile
4. Vaccination coverage in the Dominican Republic
5. Vaccination coverage situation in Guatemala, in preparation for the measles vaccination campaign

The participants presented the results in a webinar where authorities from respective countries and PAHO were invited, which generated a fruitful discussion that enriched the analyses presented.

Outcomes:

The next steps will be to provide training on advanced topics in the use of R and its environment to those responsible for data analysis of immunization programs in the countries of the Region. This will provide them with efficient and sustainable tools, and will foster collaboration and joint development among countries for health data analysis.

Author: WHO PAHO