The chunampet community health information management system: A health and demographic surveillance system from a rural South India

BACKGROUND: Developed countries have strong health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS), whereas there is a dearth of such system in developing countries like India. India depends on national surveys and individual studies for public health information. At present All India Institute of Medical Sciences – New Delhi HDSS and Vadu HDSS are well established HDSS in India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We developed a HDSS in a remote rural area of South India and named as Community Health Information Management System (CHIMS) This covered 20 villages around Rural Health Training Centre – Chunampet. We collected the family and demographic information from March 2018 to October 2018. Pregnancy, birth, under-five and mortality data were collected once in every 3 months with the help of interns, Medical Social Workers. Data collection done using CHIMS Guide and entered in EpiData software. EpiAnalysis, Quantum Geographic Information System, Dropbox were the other freely available software used in this program. RESULTS: CHIMS HDSS covered 14924 individuals belonging to 4486 households in the surrounding twenty villages. Population density was 213/km(2). CHIMS consumed very limited resources in terms of workforce, materials, and transport. CHIMS database was used as a baseline database for many other studies. This CHIMS HDSS helped in many publications, postgraduate thesis dissertations and mainly attracted many extramural research funds from leading government Research Institutes from India. CONCLUSION: CHIMS proved to be a robust surveillance system in providing vital public health information about the community and attracted more extramural funds to the institute.