Arba Minch HDSS

It operates Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) sites in both rural and urban areas. The rural site of the AM-HDRC spans nine kebeles, the smallest administrative units in Ethiopia, situated within Arba Minch Zuria and Gacho Baba districts in the Gamo Zone of Southern Ethiopia. Each kebele, typically housing 3,000 to 5,000 people, has a health post staffed by 1 to 3 female Health Extension Workers (HEWs) in rural areas.

These HEWs are tasked with providing primary health care services to the community. In 2009, a baseline census in the rural surveillance area identified 65,059 individuals (50. 59% male and 49. 41% female) across 13,316 households. Since then, the HDSS has been continuously collecting longitudinal data to monitor the population at regular intervals.

This includes recording vital events like births, deaths, pregnancies and their outcomes, in- and out-migration, and changes in marital status. The site also collects data on family planning, child vaccination, nutritional status, wealth index, mental health, child and adult morbidity surveillance, and other add-on modules at 1 to 3-year intervals.

Each household in the rural site is visited twice a year, and verbal autopsy (VA) interviews are conducted for all registered deaths to determine probable causes of death. 39% being women of childbearing age. In 2025, the AM-HDRC expanded its surveillance activities to include an urban HDSS site in Arba Minch town.

This urban site, currently operating in seven kebeles, is in the process of collecting baseline data on over 42,000 individuals living in more than 8,000 households. Urban kebeles generally have a larger population than their rural counterparts and enjoy better access to higher-level health facilities, such as hospitals and specialized clinics. A baseline census is currently underway at the urban site to establish its surveillance cohort.