Increasing the Availability and Quality of Information for Decision Making At the Local Level : The Case of the Sucre Municipality, Venezuela

Health systems development should take into account the composition and levels of services at national, sub-national and local entities. In many cases, the organization of health systems is based on the major characteristics presented at national level. The specific features of health systems at sub-national and local level of government are not related, in general, to the distinctive mechanisms of policy decisions in those localities. The lack of specific information at sub-national or local level may influence the effectiveness of policy decisions. Moreover, the utilization of country data as a proxy for indicators at sub-national and local level may affect the accuracy of health policy in other levels of decisions.

The elaboration and utilization of new methods to gather and systematize information for policy utilization at the local level, is a major requirement in many developing countries. The design and implementation of these methods should consider the role of health policies associated with other areas of policy, in order to reduce costs and increase data utilization. It would be desirable to articulate these initiatives in a more comprehensive orientation of public policy at the local level.

The presentation describes the design and implementation of a Household Survey to Monitoring Social Conditions in a major Municipality of Venezuela (population around 1,5 million inhabitants). It was the first household survey for this purpose implemented in the country at the local level (700 households, 2,800 individuals in the sample). The field work for the household survey was performed in August 2010. The results were available in 10 weeks. The presentation systematizes the lessons in the elaboration and implementation, which could be useful for other settings. Finally, the presentation includes recommendations to improve the process of utilization of information and the modalities to be introduced to guarantee the sustainability of these innovations.

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