Donor data vacuuming
Open accessAbstract
In this essay, we seek to understand how the stunning rise of data vacuuming, necessitated by the pretense of ‘partnership’ within global health, has fundamentally altered how routine health data in poor countries is collected, analyzed, prioritized, and used to inform management and policy. Writing as a team of authors with experiences on multiple sides of global health partnerships in the United States, Mozambique, Nepal, Lesotho, Kenya, and Cote d’Ivoire, we argue that solidarity-based partnership between donor and recipient countries is impossible when evidence production and management is effectively outsourced to external organizations to meet the criteria of donor partners. Specifically, to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, equity-oriented strategies are critically needed to create data collection, analysis, and use activities that are mutually beneficial and sustainable.
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It is not uncommon in SSA for health workers to dedicate significant time on data collection, entry, and reporting without active engagement in data use.
“It is not uncommon in SSA, where there is a critical health workforce shortage [49], for health workers to dedicate significant time on data collection, entry, and reporting without active engagement in data use [50,51].”
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Gimbel, S., Chilundo, B., Kenworthy, N., Inguane, C., Citrin, D., Chapman, R., Sherr, K., & Pfeiffer, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- University of Washington Bothell (US)
- Georgia Tech-Europe (FR)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Medicine Anthropology Theory
- Publisher
- Edinburgh University Library
- Published
- 2018-05-15
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 99
- ISSN
- 2405-691X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2804899213
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 5
- FWCI
- 6.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Medicine Anthropology Theory (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Development › International Development and Aid
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Global Health and Surgery
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public health and occupational medicine
- Keywords
- global health partnerships, donor-recipient relations, health data collection, evidence generation, Sustainable Development Goals, health policy, data sovereignty, low-income countries
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