dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Archana Chillala <archanac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you, Calle and Alex for the detailed response. But, I guess the
feature is still under development. Could you please let us know its
roadmap?

Archana Chillala
Application Developer
Email archanac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Telephone +91 9100960533 <+91+9100960533>
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On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 7:04 PM, Calle Hedberg <calle.hedberg@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Archana,
>
> Alex' description is a bit short. Firstly, yes, the predictors are
> intended to be used to derive thresholds that can be compared to actual
> events. Some examples:
> - for a disease like Cholera, the threshold will normally be 1 (confirmed)
> case, so no calculated/predicted threshold is required. 1 confirmed case =
> outbreak.
> - for a disease like Typhoid Fever, the threshold will higher but
> dependent on area history. WHO generally use the previous 5 years to
> determine what is the "normal" number of cases in an area (e.g. the US will
> have 400 cases of typhoid fever reported per year). T
> hat "normal" number is what the DHIS2 predictors will provide, and you can
> then establish a validation rule saying that if actual number of reported
> cases in e.g. one week is more than the normal number per week multiplied
> with factor x, then you flag it as a possible outbreak.
> - for diseases that are commonly seasonal like Malaria, the predictor
> values vary through the year. 100 cases during summer-time is business as
> usual, 100 cases in winter-time is all alarm-bells ringing.
>
> Secondly, predictor values can be used for on-the-fly calculations and
> comparisons - where predictor values in theory might change daily due to
> new data being incorporate into the calculations - or they can be based on
> historical data only, persisted and regarded as stable for let us say one
> year. That debate is still on-going, but my guess is we will end up with
> IDSR systems generally using predictor values with some stability.
>
> Thirdly, predictor methodology will increasingly not only rely on
> historical data but also predicted environmental factors: So in the case of
> malaria, if global weather patterns indicate way above normal rains, you
> would up your predictor values accordingly. From another perspective, this
> could be regarded as a basic early warning system (note: most useful early
> warning system would require more sophisticated modeling than such
> predictor+)
>
> Fourthly, and this goes beyond disease surveillance: predictors can be
> used for short term forecasting of performance. We did stuff like that in
> Cape Town already 10-15 years ago: you predict total performance for the
> financial year by predicting (= extra-polating) from the performance during
> e.g. the first six months. The idea being that under-performing areas are
> identified early and in time for mitigating efforts to be made. As should
> be obvious, you can use the same predictor value calculations to assist
> with setting short-term and medium-term TARGETS.
>
> Fifthly, predictors might assist with making sense of historical data
> collected with diverse frequencies and methodologies: Routine data, sample
> surveys, census, household surveys, case-based data, etc. Predictor values
> can thus be a result of triangulating multiple disparate data sources.
>
> Finally, and now we are into scenario modelling: Predictors can be used as
> one component of future "what-if" scenarios, where you have a sophisticated
> 5-10-20 years model with inputs from demography, disease patterns, climate,
> human/economic development, global trade patterns, human resources, drugs,
> technology, and so forth. The DHIS is nowhere near that territory yet, but
> it is likely to become a focus area in some years.
>
> The main impediment to further development of these predictor values right
> now seems to be that few if anybody has used them to any extent (yet) -
> that will hopefully be rectified during 2017 with more widespread
> implementation of IDSR on the DHIS2 platform.
>
> Regards
> Calle
>
> On 26 December 2016 at 13:15, Alex Tumwesigye <atumwesigye@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Archana,
>>
>> Predictors replaced surveillance rules in data quality app. They have
>> exactly the same functionality as surveillance rules. They are still under
>> development since they are meant to be persisted and uniquely identified.
>> They are used in the idsr for threshold calculations.
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>> On Monday, December 26, 2016, Archana Chillala <archanac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> We are using latest revision of DHIS 2.25. We find a new metadata entity
>>> called "*Predictors*" in the 'others' module of maintenance app. We
>>> have also gone through the documentation about Predictors and it tells what
>>> it is and how we can configure it, explaining all its properties. But we
>>> are not clear as to where they can be used or where could we look for its
>>> predicted values on the UI and which particular app to look at for the
>>> same. Could you please let us know, how and where can the predictors
>>> functionality be leveraged?
>>>
>>> While testing 2.25 version, we observed that, we’re able to save a
>>> category without assigning any category options to it. We're able to save a
>>> dataset without assigning any data elments to it. So is the case with most
>>> of the metadata entities in maintenance app. This wasn't the behavior in
>>> earlier versions of DHIS like 2.20, 2.21. Not sure, but probably, it's been
>>> like this ever since maintenance app was introduced. Is this the
>>> expected behavior? Or is it a bug?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *Cheers,*
>>>
>>> Archana Chillala
>>> Application Developer
>>> Email archanac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Telephone +91 9100960533 <+91+9100960533>
>>> [image: ThoughtWorks]
>>> <http://www.thoughtworks.com/?utm_campaign=archana-chillala-signature&utm_medium=email&utm_source=thoughtworks-email-signature-generator>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Alex Tumwesigye
>>
>> Technical Advisor - DHIS2 (Consultant),
>> Ministry of Health/AFENET  | HISP Uganda
>> Kampala
>> Uganda
>> +256 774149 775, + 256 759 800161
>> Skype ID: talexie
>>
>> IT Consultant (Servers, Networks and Security, Health Information Systems
>> - DHIS2, Disease Outbreak & Surveillance Systems) & Solar Consultant
>>
>>
>> "I don't want to be anything other than what I have been - one tree hill "
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
>
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> Calle Hedberg
>
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