Health Data Collection Before, During and After Emergencies and Disasters—The Result of the Kobe Expert Meeting
, Alisa Yanasan 2, Teodoro Herbosa 3, Nilesh Buddh 4, Ferdinal Fernando 5 and Ryoma Kayano 6Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciated the opportunity to review this manuscript. The topic of maintaining the quality and
integrity of health-related information in disaster areas is important. I especially liked the emphasis
on the before-to-after timeframe as this may help also to assess the public health impacts of the
disaster. I largely had no comments or concerns regarding the manuscript's content. The authors have written a paper around an important WHO-related meeting on proactive planning for health care information systems.
I did have some edits to make regarding English. In most cases the edits involved definite articles or the substitution of one word for another. I provide the line numbers for the suggested modifications below:
Line# Change Suggested
36: ...at the Asia....
41: ...in the scientific...
50: ...could lead to make negative...
51: ...been a number...
57: ...articles literatures...
66: ...discussion, ... (insert comma after discussion)
68: ...following below...
74: ...KISS...(Question:....this is an acronym for "keep it simple, stupid." Do the authors want to use it? Maybe just spell out "keep it simple."
78: ...Secondly,
82: ...functionality functions
100: ...after a disaster...
107: capacity-building (add hypen)
117: ...since because
122:...to the post...
144: sources
147:...is required to be should be...
Again, I believe that this is a noteworthy, short article on an important meeting. I thank the authors for their contribution on the topic.
Author Response
Response to the Reviewer #1:
I appreciated the opportunity to review this manuscript. The topic of maintaining the quality and integrity of health-related information in disaster areas is important. I especially liked the emphasis on the before-to-after timeframe as this may help also to assess the public health impacts of the disaster. I largely had no comments or concerns regarding the manuscript's content. The authors have written a paper around an important WHO-related meeting on proactive planning for health care information systems.
I did have some edits to make regarding English. In most cases the edits involved definite articles or the substitution of one word for another. I provide the line numbers for the suggested modifications below:
Line# Change Suggested
36: ...at the Asia....
41: ...in the scientific...
50: ...could lead to make negative...
51: ...been a number...
57: ...articles literatures...
66: ...discussion, ... (insert comma after discussion)
68: ...following below...
74: ...KISS...(Question:....this is an acronym for "keep it simple, stupid." Do the authors want to use it? Maybe just spell out "keep it simple."
78: ...Secondly,
82: ...functionality functions
100: ...after a disaster...
107: capacity-building (add hypen)
117: ...since because
122:...to the post...
144: sources
147:...is required to be should be...
Again, I believe that this is a noteworthy, short article on an important meeting. I thank the authors for their contribution on the topic.
(Response) Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions for English edit. We modified all the suggested words and phrases following your advice. The modification is highlighted in the main text.
Reviewer 2 Report
The short communication addresses a very important issue of health data issue, which is extremely crucial immediately after the disaster. I congratulate the authors for this note, which seems to be very information. Just couple of minor points:
1. In the title, it is mentioned data management, while in the text it is mostly the types of data, which is analyzed. Data management is a quite broad issue, including privacy issue, data back up etc., in addition to using data in the decision making. Please think of this issue and kindly make appropriate change.
2. Most of the data depends on the proper data set before the disaster, which is a challenge. I am sure WHO team and the advisory group of the H-EDRM is fully aware of this. While, I understand that the focus of the paper is post disaster health emergency data issue, however, if we can have some suggestions on the minimum basic data set the local government health department should have before the disaster would be useful.
Author Response
Response to the Reviewer #2:
1. In the title, it is mentioned data management, while in the text it is mostly the types of data, which is analyzed. Data management is a quite broad issue, including privacy issue, data back up etc., in addition to using data in the decision making. Please think of this issue and kindly make appropriate change.
(Response): Thank you very much for your valuable comment. We would change the title following your suggestion.
Health Data Collection Before, During and After Emergencies and Disasters – the Result of the Kobe Expert Meeting
2. Most of the data depends on the proper data set before the disaster, which is a challenge. I am sure WHO team and the advisory group of the H-EDRM is fully aware of this. While, I understand that the focus of the paper is post disaster health emergency data issue, however, if we can have some suggestions on the minimum basic data set the local government health department should have before the disaster would be useful.
(Response): Thank you very much for your valuable comment. We have added following description in discussion part.
While the focus of this expert meeting was on post-disaster health data collection, understandably proper collection of baseline data before the disaster is essential to conduct efficient health emergency management.
