Building Stronger National Health Information Systems: Leveraging DHIS2 for Health Systems Performance, Policy and Research
Submission deadline: 31 August 2025
Link to CfP and journal guidelines
Health information systems (HIS) are foundational to manage health systems and improve medical knowledge and practice. Despite the widespread adoption and documented impact on health data quality and availability by new digital interventions, evidence suggests that HIS remain underutilized by health system planners for routine decision-making, by policymakers for evidence-based decisions, and by researchers for generating insights.
This gap between data availability and use has been noted also for District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2), a digital platform forming the core HIS for over 80 countries, serving as the primary platform for monitoring health services for more than 2 billion people globally. As data and digital solutions become increasingly critical for health systems to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), DHIS2’s role in aggregating routine health data—from facility-level service statistics to disease surveillance—offers countless opportunities to inform health system performance, policy, and research. But it also underscores the persistent health system challenge of translating information into improved health outcomes.
Aims and Scope: This special issue seeks to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on innovation and DHIS2-enabled health systems. We invite contributions “on, for, or with DHIS2” that address:
· Studies “on” DHIS2: Any study aimed at investigating any of the features of DHIS2 systems or data for further use in HIS
· Studies “for” DHIS2: Any study aimed understanding how to address limitations or otherwise strengthen the use of DHIS2 in HIS
· Studies “with” DHIS: Studies that use DHIS2 to better understand the performance of HIS or health systems
We encourage submissions from interdisciplinary teams and practitioners, particularly from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), to reflect diverse perspectives. Submissions may employ qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, provided they contribute novel insights to health systems and health information systems research.
this CfP directly grew out of the discussions at DAC and afterwards last year, thanks for all the discussions and interest! We think this is a great opportunity to publish diverse learnings from the big DHIS2 family and we really hope many of you will consider submitting your work. There is already many promising topics scheduled for presentation at the upcoming DAC, and we will organize some discussion/session on this CfP. But the call is open to everyone and not dependent on DAC participation! Please reach out if you have any questions. I’m also happy to receive abstracts and give feedback on relevance for the call, just drop me an email, which is listed in the CfP at the journal pages.