Establishing Webuye Health and Demographic Surveillance Site in Rural Western Kenya: Challenges and Lessons Learned

Abstract

This paper describes the methodologies, challenges and lessons learned in establishing Webuye Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) in Webuye Division of Bungoma County. The Webuye HDSS was established in 2007 through a collaborative programme between Moi University, (Eldoret, Kenya) and Ghent University (Ghent, Belgium.) through the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR), university cooperation for development (UOS) in Flanders framework. The goal for establishing the HDSS was to provide reliable and comprehensive demographic, health and economic data to inform health policy and planning at local and national levels. The data were collected by households visit within the community twice a year, using field interviewers from the local community. The participatory data collection methods used enhanced locals’ interests to take part in data collection processes. Challenges encountered include insufficient funding, refusals to participate by some household members, modalities for coping with future anticipated community fatigue, responsibility to protect both the University and community, threat by other programmes operating in the area and staff retention. Despite these challenges, the Webuye HDSS has been successfully established and maintained for the last 4 years. To overcome the challenges establishing and running Webuye HDSS, thorough explanation of the concept to both stakeholders and the community was found to be of utmost importance.