dhis2-users team mailing list archive

[Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dylan,

You may want to check out the infamous "Zooks" thread for a much longer
discussion on some of the issues here
http://dhis-developers-list.1563109.n2.nabble.com/On-categories-and-dimensions-and-zooks-td3657695.html

If I understand DHIS2 correctly, it is not possible to create multiple age
categories options and assign then partially to different category
combinations, at least in a way that makes them easy to analyze.

In your case you might have categories "Age1", "Age2", "Age 3"...

You then may want to aggregate or analyze "Age1"/0-1 and "Age3"/0-1
together, since they are effectively the same age group. It is not possible
currently in DHIS2 to do this, as category options cannot be shared between
categories. It would seem to me to make sense to have a category called
"Age" with all possible category options (all of your age groups) and then
assign specific category options to a category group (each of your cells in
the table) and then assign this category group to a specific data element.
This does not seem to currently be possible, if my understanding is correct.

Having said that, if you do not want to have an age group "0-1" and "0-1 "
(note the space) it is possible to have two category options which may
appear to the end user as the same, but which appear to be different to
DHIS2. This is of course, a very hacky approach. The restriction of not
being able to re-use categories options across categories is still a bit
mystifying to me, as the use case seems pretty clear.

Another possibility, with other potential issues, is to create a single age
category, which would contain all possible age category options, and then
implement custom data entry forms to only allow entry into the relevant age
groups, depending on the data element. Also, relatively clunky.

Another option, is the use of plain-ole-data-elements with no categories,
which as you say is a bit clunky, but would of course work in this case.

Hopefully Lars, Bob or Ola or others could offer better insight (and a
solution).

Regards,
Jason


On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 6:24 AM, Dylan Tovey <dylan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  Dear all,****
>
> ** **
>
> We have slowly been moving our internal reporting over to DHIS2. ****
>
> ** **
>
> We are also looking at some of the external government-mandated forms – and
> wondered if somebody could provide some advice.****
>
> ** **
>
> We have an existing National Health Information System form that we would
> like to transfer as is to electronic format. ****
>
> ** **
>
> On a single form they have eight different ways of breaking up age related
> data (for different data elements) ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> 0-1****
>
> 1-4****
>
> 5+****
>
> ** **
>
> 0-4****
>
> 5-14****
>
> 15+****
>
> 0-1****
>
> 1-4****
>
> 0-4****
>
> 5-16****
>
> 17+****
>
> Under 5 ****
>
> 0-4****
>
> 5-9****
>
> 10-14****
>
> 15-19****
>
> 20-24****
>
> 25-29****
>
> 30-49****
>
> 50+****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Just wondering if anybody had any suggestions about an elegant way to
> integrate such a cross-section into DHIS?****
>
> ** **
>
> I’ve looked at creating separate age-related data elements – or at six
> different data element categories – but both seem reasonably clunky.****
>
> ** **
>
> Any thoughts?****
>
> ** **
>
> Cheers****
>
> Dylan ****
>
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