Eastern cape training

Turning health data into better decisions for the Eastern Cape Province Department of health team

The Sub-Saharan Africa Consortium for Advanced Biostatistics (SSACAB) partnered with the Eastern Cape Province Department of Health to equip health officials with practical data management, analysis and reporting skills to support evidence-based planning, monitoring and decision-making across the public health system. Over five days, SSACAB led important training that will build on existing health information systems in the province. The training went beyond this to address a persistent challenge: strengthening the practical use of data for decision-making.

It was especially heartening to see this work take place with participation from Eastern Cape Department of Health officials alongside SSACAB fellows and researchers. The sessions were facilitated by members of the SSACAB team, including Prof Eustasius Musenge, Caroline Vika, Vusumuzi Mabasa, Siyanda Madala, Ncube Bongani, and Dr Okechinyere Achilonu.

Too often, research and training can feel removed from the realities of public health delivery. This kind of collaboration matters because it brings people working in the system together with those developing analytical and research capacity. We felt privileged to create a shared space where data skills can be applied directly to real service-delivery needs.

The Eastern Cape, like other parts of the public health system, already generates large volumes of routine health data. But the real value of that data depends on whether it is complete, accurate, timely, and translated into usable insights for planning, service delivery, and accountability. SSACAB trainers guided participants through health data fundamentals, Excel-based quality checks, data cleaning, error detection, R and RStudio, data wrangling, visualisation, correlation, regression analysis, logistic regression and the development of interactive dashboards using R Shiny. The programme also included group work, presentations and peer feedback, allowing participants to apply these tools to practical public health data challenges.

Why this matters
As healthcare systems increasingly rely on accurate and timely information, strengthening data skills is critical. It is central to improving how health trends are tracked, how services are planned, how performance is monitored and how decisions are made. SSACAB is proud to support efforts that strengthen public-sector data capacity and help turn health data into actionable insights.