JEDDAH, 29 April 2007 — Saudi Arabia for the first time will participate in the world health survey supervised by the World Health Organization that will start on May 12 and last for 40 days.
“The survey aims to provide a view of the Kingdom’s health condition,” said Ghazi Al-Jilani, assistant deputy health minister for research and planning.
“This will include checking blood diseases, diabetes, heart diseases, high blood pressure problems, cholesterol, asthma and other health problems. Psychological problems will also be taken into consideration,” he said.
The survey will include 10,900 families in all 13 regions of the Kingdom. Each family will be given two forms: a general one related to the family and another related to an adult member of the same family (male or female over 18) who will get a free checkup by the visiting team. The team will choose the family member randomly based on certain medical criteria.
The 147 teams that will conduct the survey will be trained next week by 40 people who themselves are currently being trained at a four-day workshop that started yesterday. They will learn how to train the teams on collecting the correct information from the families keeping in mind the different traditions of each region. Each team consists of a doctor and a nurse.
The Ministry of Health randomly chose the families from a sample from the General Statistics Department at the Ministry of Economy and Planning that did the census around two years ago.
Chosen families had their houses marked with posters informing them of the upcoming survey.
Al-Jilani added that the survey would also collect information regarding the public opinion on health care in the Kingdom and personal expenses on health care.
“This survey will help estimate the mortality rate among different age groups and people who suffer from chronic diseases,” said Dr. Mohamed Ba-Sulaiman, general director of planning at the Ministry of Health and a consultant of family medicine. “It will also show the effect of the health care in the Kingdom. This will help improve health services,” he added.
