---
id: "coronavirus-smarter-crowdsourcing:strategies/Increase-government-capacity-to-use-public-health-"
type: "GovLab policy strategy"
title: "Increase government capacity to use public health monitoring and surveillance data by training government…"
url: "https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/increase-government-capacity-to-use-public-health-"
summary: "Increase government capacity to use public health monitoring and surveillance data by training government workers in data science and partnering with data scientists."
source: "The GovLab (coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Increase government capacity to use public health monitoring and surveillance data by training government…

Increase government capacity to use public health monitoring and surveillance data by training government workers in data science and partnering with data scientists.

- Timeframe: 6-12 Months (long)
- Audience: Private Sector, Academia, Government Workers
- Type: Data, Technology/Innovation, Capacity Building
- Recommendation: [Increase Government Capacity](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/recommendations/increase-government-capacity)
- Part of: [Smarter Crowdsourcing in the Age of Coronavirus](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/)

## Actions governments should take

1. Allocate funds from current training budgets to fully or partially fund employees to attend existing data science programs offered by local or international universities.
2. Partner with universities or research institutions to develop training programs for government staff and workers.
3. Partner with universities or research institutions for secondments of subject matter experts who can fill capacity gaps while training programs are being established.
4. Identify cultural and institutional features of the community that may influence the quality of monitoring data, including information about any sources of distrust that may influence the community’s response to the program. Include specific modules or materials on accounting for these biases in the data.
5. Ensure that the partnership is led by a government counterpart that is passionate to get things done and who has access to resources and technical knowledge of data analysis.
6. Partner with a data science company by carrying out a bidding process to contract an external provider. In-house data expertise is necessary to define the scope of the project, evaluate the proposals and manage the project.
7. Include modules that teach government workers to design, maintain, and publish data dashboards that are updated regularly and show progress on metrics.
8. Fund and assign a data science team to specifically take charge of public-facing data communications, including data dashboards.
9. Conduct training at the local level and/or support the hiring of health IT specialists and health informatics specialists.

## Examples from around the world

1. [n Central America, the RECAINSA is working very closely with COMISCA (https://www.sica.int/comisca/) to provide training for epidemiologists and to strengthen the Government's capacity to collect and use data efficiently.](https://www.sica.int/comisca)