Operationalizing One Digital Health and FAIR Data Principles for Disease Surveillance in a Low-Medium Income Country in Africa: Qualitative Study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
JMIR medical informatics·
- DOI
- 10.2196/93321
- PMID
- 42555930
- PMCID
- —
- OpenAlex
- W7169508859
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Publisher unavailable
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The analysis supplies practical guidance for resource-constrained regions aiming to replace disconnected digital projects with coordinated, compatible networks that support comprehensive pathogen tracking.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
What are the stakeholder perceptions, structural barriers, and sociotechnical prerequisites for implementing a unified digital health framework that enables cross-sectoral data sharing in Kinshasa?
Study design
A qualitative investigation combining semistructured interviews with key personnel and a review of national health policy documents.
Population and setting
Twenty-two professionals and officials representing human, animal, environmental health, and technology sectors operating within Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Main findings
The digital environment features parallel formal and informal systems that force staff to duplicate records manually. Administrative hurdles include inconsistent power grids, weak network coverage, mismatched software architectures, and organizational boundaries that prioritize human medicine over veterinary and ecological domains. Effective deployment hinges on upgrading core utilities, maintaining ongoing staff education, creating technical connectors between isolated networks, and obtaining strong administrative backing.
Public-health relevance
The analysis supplies practical guidance for resource-constrained regions aiming to replace disconnected digital projects with coordinated, compatible networks that support comprehensive pathogen tracking.
Important limitations
Findings rely solely on participant recollections and written policy materials collected during a brief fourteen-day observation period, which may limit broader applicability.
GIDS interpretation
This article provides contextual documentation on digital infrastructure deficits and administrative fragmentation that influence cross-disciplinary coordination for zoonotic pathogen monitoring in Central Africa.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 9 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.