Government’s Operation Seek and Save to assess the extent of households at risk from COVID-19 and dengue fever got underway Thursday to rave reviews from an official supervising the survey.
The collaboration of health authorities and the University of the West Indies got off to a “very, very, very, very good” start, said Dr Dion Greenidge, Head of the Department of Management Studies at UWI Cave Hill Campus where the data gathering system was designed.
Reporting on the first full day of Seek and Save, Dr Greenidge said 360 students were in the field under the protection of Barbados Defence Force soldiers as they requested information on the risk factors related to COVID and dengue fever.
“So far we have covered 3,236 households across Barbados and that is within all 30 constituencies across Barbados. There are 30 constituencies within 11 parishes,” he said.
The management studies academic said the kind of data being sought include whether householders kept containers in the area that could hold water which would breed the dengue-causing Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes.
Dr Greenidge explained: “We are not taking persons’ names. In fact, we are not taking information from everyone in the household. We are going to the household and we are taking information from a representative of that household who is willing to provide us with the information in relation to that household who would be able to help us produce the kind of information that can help Barbados as a country.
“We are looking at both COVID and dengue risk factors. That is why I said we are not interested in persons’ personal names, but we are interested in information that would help us to identify the risk factors…those persons at risk, those areas at risk and be able to make effective intervention and decisions.”
Dr Greenidge gave an assurance that the data which the students are gathering is being treated in the strictest confidence. Once put into a specially protected phone issued to the field volunteers, the information goes immediately to a secure server at the university in real-time and can only be accessed by a select certified team and analysts.
“We are very much ensuring that there is data protection… that we are protecting any kind of information we received from the field,” he added. “I would say that in fact when students on their phones, collect that information, it comes to the server. They can’t go back and look at that information. It comes to the server. So we have taken all precautions to ensure that data is protected.”
He sought to make it clear that the phones are not the students’ personal devices, adding that calls cannot even be made from them.
Dr Greenidge added: “The idea is to cover every household and available residents within the 30 constituencies across Barbados within the next 11 to 12 days. So we are well on our way. This has been our first day in the field collecting data. We spent most of our time training and preparing the system which has been developed and designed by our MSc graduate students in association with our information technology centre here.”
Dr Greenidge was effusive in his praise of the students for the manner in which they carried out their tasks and the feedback from householders.
He said: “Students have been observing physical distance in the field, they are not going into anyone’s households, they are staying six feet away as they speak to residents and they are conducting themselves in a friendly and approachable manner. So far there have been no incidents from the field. In fact, the response from the field has been very, very, very, very good at this point.”
Dr Greenidge said it was too early to give early results from the information so far collected which he said is still be analysed. (EJ)
