Sustaining community health programmes through routine data management practices in Nairobi County, Kenya: The role of prevailing environmental factors

Abstract

Data from community health programmes are essential in informing crucial decisions that shape how such programmes are introduced, evolve, and remain relevant. However, the management of these data is influenced by dominant environmental factors that shape the quality of their outcomes. This paper investigates the moderating influence of environmental factors on the relationship between data management practices and the sustainability of community health programmes in urban settings. A positivist paradigm with a descriptive cross-sectional survey design was employed to collect quantitative data from 157 community health promoters, who serve as primary data handlers for these programmes in Nairobi, Kenya. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data. This study confirms a statistically significant positive relationship between data management practices and the sustainability of community health programmes (β = 0.696, t = 6.499, p = 0.000, f² = 0.940). Further, the study confirms that environmental factors have a statistically significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between data management practices and the sustainability of community health programmes (β = –0.173, t = 2.796, p = 0.005). Thus, in settings with fragile environmental factors such as poor physical infrastructure, inadequate data-management policies, and unsupportive sociocultural and economic conditions, investing in data-management practices for community-health programmes is crucial. Therefore, the study urges policymakers and programme implementers to consider prevailing environmental factors and to design context-specific, differentiated implementation frameworks to support the sustainability of community-health programmes.