Demographic surveillance system

In the fields of demographics and public health, a demographic surveillance system (DSS), also called a health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS),[1] gathers longitudinal health and demographic data for a dynamic cohort of the total population in a specified geographic area. An HDSS is created by first executing a census of households in the area as a baseline, followed by regular visits to each household to gather health and demographic data.[2] The cohort is dynamic in that members are added through birth or immigration and members are subtracted through death or emigration.[3] Tracking population migration is particularly important for understanding of HDSS data.[4]

In developing countries, there is commonly a lack of health and demographic information at the community or population level.[5] For instance, cause of death may be unknown for deaths occurring outside of health facilities.[1] One approach to collecting such data is the cross-sectional Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). HDSS provide a complement to episodic DHS by collecting longitudinally data over time, often with multiple household surveys.[5]

HDSS sites originated in the 1960s.[6] Since then, many HDSS in developing countries have organized together in the INDEPTH network.[7] As of 2017, INDEPTH has 47 HDSS sites following roughly 3 million people.[8] One function of INDEPTH is to gather data across HDSS and to establish standards for data acquisition.[9] There are other demographic and health data gathering programs similar to DSS that are not part of INDEPTH, such as the Sample Registration system in India[10] and the Disease Surveillance Points system in China.[7]