Data value and care value in the practice of health systems: A case study in Uganda

In anthropology, interest in how values are created, maintained and changed has been reinvigorated. This case study, draws on this literature to interrogate concerns about the relationship between data collection and the delivery of patient care within global health. They followed a pilot study conducted in Kayunga, Uganda that aimed to improve the collection of health systems data in five public health centres and it´s observed that measurement, calculation and narrative practices could be assigned care-value or data-value and that the attempt to improve data collection within health facilities transferred ‘data-value’ into health centres with little consideration among project staff for its impact on care