About Navrongo Health & Demographic Surveilance System (NDSS)
Having started in 1988 as a field site, the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) was formally established in 1992 by the Ghana Ministry of Health. In 1993 the NHRC put in place the Navrongo Health and Demographic Surveillance System (NHDSS) in the two Kassena-Nankana districts of the Upper East region of Ghana to support the evaluation of research activities in the Centre particularly on the determinants of morbidity, mortality and fertility in Ghana’s northern regions.
The two districts cover an area of 1675 km2 along the Ghana-Burkina Faso border. The NHDSS currently monitors approximately 157,000 people in 32,000 households; fieldworkers routinely visit households within the study area to collect and update the demographic characteristics of the people. Events monitored routinely include pregnancies, births, morbidity, deaths, migrations, marriages and vaccination status. Socioeconomic indicators are also monitored. Data updates are done every four months by trained fieldworkers. Additional features of our HDSS include the Community Key Informants (CKI) system where trained volunteers routinely report key events such as pregnancies, births and child deaths as they occur in their locality. Verbal Autopsy (VA) technique is also used for the determination of the probable causes of death of the study population.
Objectives
To date, the NHDSS has fulfilled its role of serving as a resource for the conduct of research at the Navrongo Health Research Centre by
- Accurately documenting demographic dynamics in the Kassena-Nankana districts
- Serving as a framework for population-based health research that addresses local health priorities
- Providing the needed platform for research that informs population and health policy both in Ghana and worldwide
Demographic characteristics as at June 2012
As at June 2012, the population of the study area stood at 156,735, giving a population density of 93.6. The annual growth rate is 2.2 percent from last year’s population of 153,293. As it is with most populations, there are more females than males as females constitute about 52.3 percent of the population of the study area. The proportion of children who are below 15 years continues to decline from 36.6 percent in the previous year to 36 percent this year. The proportion of the population which is 60 years and above is 10 percent, same as the previous year.
¨ All residential units/compounds and health facilities are geo-referenced
Mortality levels
The routine data collection processes of the NHDSS include the registration of all deaths that occur to resident members of the study area. A total death recorded within the analysis period (one year, between July 2011 and June 2012) was 1651. This gives a crude death rate of 10.5 per 1000 person years. Neonatal mortality rate for the period under review stood at 14.3 per 1000 live births. Infant and under five mortality rates stood at 30.4 and 56 per 1000 live births respectively.
Fertility levels
Births form one of the components of population change and so is one of the important events captured by the NHDSS. This information allows for the evaluation of the fertility profile of the study area. Crude births rate for the districts as at June 2012 was 24.2 per 1000 person years, whilst general fertility was 102 per 1000 person years of women within the reproductive age. The total fertility rate of 3.51 was recorded and this refers to the number of children a woman in the Kassena-Nankana districts would have if the current age-specific fertility rates were to continue.