Health information systems and tackling violence against women: a necessary dialogue.
Alice Cristina Medeiros Melo, Isabella Vitral Pinto, Camila Alves Bahia and 5 others
PMID 40531667WHAT IT FOUND
Brazil's birth, hospital, outpatient, death and notification systems can reveal violence against women, but the data are fragmented.
Health professionals must record suspected or confirmed violence in the national notification system.
Key findings
01SINAN is the direct notification system for violence, and suspected or confirmed cases must be reported by health professionals.
02Hospital records can identify violence only when the injury diagnosis and the secondary cause-of-event codes are analysed together.
03The birth system can flag births to girls under 14 as possible rape of a vulnerable person.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This is a narrative review, not a systematic search, so it may not include all relevant studies. It does not present original patient outcomes, so it cannot show whether recording or linking data improves care. The paper says the systems are fragmented, lack interoperability, and have no unique identifier for linking records. Coverage and completeness vary by region, and violence is still underreported. Hospital and outpatient data are not enough on their own; violence may be missed unless diagnoses and notification are used together. Death data cannot separate femicide from homicide using the usual codes.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Swiss Network for International Studies, the Inova Fiocruz Program, and CNPq. The supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as evidence that recording or linking health information improves women's safety or health outcomes. It describes what the systems can capture and their fragmentation, not tested clinical effects.