---
id: "coronavirus-smarter-crowdsourcing:strategies/Partner-with-institutions-with-high-levels-of-soci"
type: "GovLab policy strategy"
title: "Partner with institutions with high levels of social engagement,trust,and access to populations to collect…"
url: "https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/partner-with-institutions-with-high-levels-of-soci"
summary: "Partner with institutions with high levels of social engagement,trust,and access to populations to collect information and implement public health monitoring and surveillance systems."
source: "The GovLab (coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Partner with institutions with high levels of social engagement,trust,and access to populations to collect…

Partner with institutions with high levels of social engagement,trust,and access to populations to collect information and implement public health monitoring and surveillance systems.

- Timeframe: 1-3 Months (immediate)
- Audience: Private Sector, Academia, Civil Society, Healthcare Providers, Organized Civil Society, Nonprofits
- Type: Data, Technology/Innovation, Partnerships, Capacity Building
- Recommendation: [Enhance Data Collection](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/recommendations/enhance-data-collection)
- Part of: [Smarter Crowdsourcing in the Age of Coronavirus](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/)

## Actions governments should take

1. Identify institutions with high levels of social engagement and/or community trust to potentially partner with on surveillance systems. These may include institutions like elementary or secondary schools, religious institutions, sports organizations, large employers like factories, and importantly primary care and public health facilities.
2. Build relationships with key individuals in these institutions who will be leading the work internally to that institution. Make sure that this point of contact is empowered to make decisions and provide internal leadership to the partnership.
3. Where possible, invest in capacity building and training for data collection amongst the staff persons in these institutions.
4. Conduct training of trainers (TOT).
5. Create an online course or asynchronous learning module that explains the fundamentals of the requested collaboration, including instructions on how to use the appropriate softwares, apps, or other data collection technologies.

## Examples from around the world

1. [Public health officials should use social surveillance systems that capitalize on institutions that populations already trust (e.g. schools, churches/religious institutions, community centers, etc.). In Mexico, the Directorate of Economic and Social Benefits at the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) is using data from employers across the country that indicates when workers are out sick or absent. This data is used to forecast where outbreaks may occur.](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30157-2/fulltext)