Dubai: From this month end, the Ministry of Health and Prevention will launch a six-month comprehensive national health survey covering 30,000 people from both Emirati and expatriate families.
The campaign that will cover 10,000 families with three members in each family being undertaken to collate relevant health data is in line with the National Health Agenda 2021 and Sustainable Development Goals 2030, said a top ministry official.
The survey is endorsed by the World Health Organisation and has the active support of all health departments including Health Authority — Abu Dhabi (Haad) and Dubai Health Authority (DHA), among others.
Dr Hussain Abdul Rahman Al Rand, assistant undersecretary of health clinics and centres at the ministry, told a press conference on Wednesday that the survey would create a comprehensive health database for the country.
“It will try to include members of different age groups — ie children below the age of five, adults above the age of 18, married women and elderly above the age of 60 — and three members from each of the 10,000 families will undergo a battery of tests and detailed interviews to collate significant data on health that will help in planning, policy development and promulgation of public health programmes for the country. This will mean the survey which ends in the second quarter of 2018 will interview about 30,000 individuals which includes 40 per cent Emirati families and 60 per cent expatriate families.”
Indicators to be covered
The survey seeks to cover all important data of the state of health of UAE residents such as extent of non-communicable diseases, pattern of physical exercise, nutrition, community health risk factors, family spending on health, environmental health and indicators of vital personal health signs.
The Dubai Health Authority recently concluded a pilot project as a forerunner to the survey that included over 3,000 health assessments. Both Haad and DHA have made detailed contribution to the questions and methodology of the survey which will follow an internationally whetted health statistics methodology in data collection and analytics.
WHO standards
Elaborating on the procedures and plans of implementation of the National Health Survey, Alya Zeid Harbi, director of the UAE’s Statistics and Research Centre, said: “The survey will be based on a large body of very comprehensive and exhaustive health indicators. We will make calls and personal visits to families to let them know our teams will come. The members of the survey team will be issued identity cards for residents to be able to identify them.
“A randomiser will help us select three members from the family and we will conduct blood tests to ascertain fasting blood sugar, lipids, triglycerides, cholesterol and haemoglobin levels, measure height, weight and waist-hip ratio and other health parameters on all three selected family members.
“Once we have all the data by the second quarter of 2018, we will clean, validate and analyse the data and create health indicators as per WHO standards. We will by the end of 2018 provide this data to the relevant health authorities for strategy and policy development. The data will also give us an idea where we stand in our health goals vis-a-vis the National Health Agenda 2021 and Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and gives us a clearer perspective on the way forward.”
In a nutshell
Survey period: Six months beginning October end
10,000 families to be selected — 40 per cent Emirati families and 60 per cent expatriate families
Three members from each family to be selected through a randomiser which means 30,000 people to be subjects of the survey
Different age groups to be included
