CHAPTER 1. THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

1.1 Introduction
Malnutrition continues to be a serious problem of every Barangay here in Puerto Princesa City. Since this problem is linked to several factors such as poverty and low educational levels among others, every barangay should find ways on how to prevent or avoid malnutrition among the people from happening. The barangay should also give attention to the health status of every household in a barangay. Infant and young child nutrition too, is of great importance because of the astounding number of children younger than 5 years old who are stunted, underweight, wasted or suffer from intrauterine growth retardation. So how can the barangay be aware of these situations?

House-to-house surveying would be very helpful, for them to be able to ask questions, interview and to know what every household nutritional needs are. At present, the BNS of barangay San Pedro are making a house-to-house survey for them to be able to record the data of every household living in barangay San Pedro. They are using the manual process in most services the barangay is giving to its residents. They are in charge of keeping track of the records of each and every one living in the barangay. These records are important for different purposes that the barangay is being used. For example, in keeping records of every household especially records of their health status. The forms that were distributed to them by the City Health office have guideline questions that will be asked to every household and answers will be collected by the BNS so they could fill up the form. It will serve as their records for their Barangay Health Clinic. All data were gathered, collected and were written in a form given by the City Health office. They make another copy of every record, compile it and keep it in a cabinet. So in short, the barangay doesn’t have a centralized and accurate system for storing records they have for these are very important to them.How they will have a file maintenance system that will lessen the problem of works they usually do in getting, keeping and updating the files. To solve these problems the researchers propose a system which is called System Integration of Health and Nutrition Information System.

It will serve as the household baseline data of the barangay San Pedro, it will monitor the maternal and child health, family planning, nutrition and environmental sanitation. This proposed system could also determine the actual population of Women of Reproductive Age, 15 – 49 yrs old.This would also determine the number of pregnant women in Brgy. San Pedro and likewise determine the actual number of WRA practicing Family Planning and those who are not.This proposed system will also help the Barangay organize their data for efficient retrieval and delivery of services. it will also serve as tool for development planning, monitoring and evaluation of projects at the barangay and it can help the person in – charge to make his/her work easily and finish his/her work in a short period of time. The main goal of this system is to help the citizen and Barangay officials of barangay San Pedro by digitally centralizing all personal information of its residents in an automated database system.The outputs of this system will assist in management and planning of health programs and all the data gathered can be brought together and will allow the DOH to assess trends in diseases, injuries, disabilities, health service access. Through this system, the officials and the BNS will be able to gather data more accurate and keep their records safer and secured.