DHIS2 Acronyms and Abbreviations¶

Expansions of acronyms and abbreviations you are likely to meet in DHIS2 documentation, the Community of Practice, DHIS2 Academy material, and conversation with the HISP network.

This page covers acronyms. For definitions of DHIS2 concepts — aggregation, analytics, the organisation unit hierarchy — see the DHIS2 Glossary.

Where an acronym has a well-known meaning outside DHIS2 that differs from ours, the DHIS2 meaning is given first and the other is noted under Not to be confused with. Where an acronym is really a name rather than an abbreviation, that is stated instead of inventing an expansion.

Common misspellings and near-misses are listed too, as short cross-references pointing at the right entry — because a great many acronym lookups fail by one or two transposed letters rather than because the term is genuinely unknown. If you looked something up and landed on a cross-reference, that is working as intended.

The lower-case e prefix on many DHIS2 and global health acronyms simply means electronic: the digitised form of a system that also exists on paper. eIDSR, eCHIS, eLMIS and the Immunization eRegistry all follow this convention, so an unfamiliar e-prefixed acronym can usually be decoded by looking up the rest of it. The same applies to a leading i for integrated, as in iCHIS.

To add a missing acronym or correct one, see Contributing an acronym.

A¶

ADEA

Association for the Development of Education in Africa. Pan-African forum for education policy dialogue, established in 1988 and hosted by the African Development Bank. Relevant to DHIS2 education-sector work. adeanet.org

ADX

Aggregate Data Exchange. An IHE profile for exchanging aggregate public health data, using SDMX data structure definitions over HTTP. DHIS2 can import and export ADX-formatted aggregate data. wiki.ihe.net

Related: mADX is the FHIR-based mobile variant of the same profile. Note: IHE spells it "Exchange"; the camel-case "eXchange" sometimes seen in DHIS2 material is not IHE's own styling.

AEC

Annual Education Census. The yearly national school data collection exercise in several education-sector DHIS2 implementations, and typically the main input to an EMIS.

AEFI

Adverse Events Following Immunization. Any untoward medical occurrence following immunisation, whether or not it is causally related to the vaccine. DHIS2 provides an AEFI tracker package built on WHO's core variables. AEFI package design

Not to be confused with: ESAVI, the same concept under its PAHO / Latin American name, and MAPI, a third regional variant.

AeHIN

Asia eHealth Information Network. Peer network of digital health professionals across South and South-East Asia, working on interoperability and health information system strengthening. aehin.org

Africa CDC

Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Continental public health agency of the African Union, established in 2016. africacdc.org

Not to be confused with: the United States CDC, a separate and unaffiliated agency. Note the British spelling "Centres" here and the American "Centers" for the US agency.

ANC

Antenatal Care. Health care during pregnancy, before birth. WHO recommends a minimum of eight ANC contacts. A very common DHIS2 data set and tracker program area. Antenatal care registry design

AOC

Attribute option combination (also written attribute option combo). The fifth data dimension in DHIS2 aggregate data: a combination of category options attached to a data set rather than to a data element, used to disaggregate every value in that data set — by implementing partner or project, for example. In the API this is the attributeOptionCombo field. Additional data dimensions

Not to be confused with: COC, the category option combination, which attaches to a data element. AOC and COC are structurally identical and easily mixed up. AO is sometimes used as shorthand for the attribute option itself.

API

Application Programming Interface. In DHIS2 this almost always means the DHIS2 Web API, the HTTP interface at /api used to read and write metadata and data. Web API documentation

C¶

CDC

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The United States national public health agency, and a long-standing DHIS2 funder and partner. cdc.gov

Not to be confused with: Africa CDC, which is unaffiliated. Note the full official name includes "and Prevention"; "Centers for Disease Control" alone is incomplete.

CDN

Content Delivery Network. A geographically distributed set of servers that deliver static assets — JavaScript libraries, stylesheets, images — from a location near the user.

CDSR

Complete Data Set Registration. DHIS2 developer shorthand for the record marking a given data set, period, organisation unit and attribute option combination as completely captured. Exposed through /api/completeDataSetRegistrations. Complete data set registrations

Not to be confused with: the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, which is what CDSR means in most health literature. This is a DHIS2 API term only, and is best written out in full outside developer contexts.

CESA

Continental Education Strategy for Africa. African Union education strategy. CESA 16-25 covered 2016–2025 and has been succeeded by CESA 2026–2035. au.int

CHAP

Climate Health Analytics Platform. Open-source platform developed by the HISP Centre for climate-informed forecasting of climate-sensitive disease, used with the DHIS2 Modeling App. chap.dhis2.org

CHIS

Community Health Information System. A combination of paper, software, hardware, people and processes supporting informed decision making and action by community health workers at community level — distinct from a facility-based HMIS. CHIS foundational terms

Not to be confused with: eCHIS and iCHIS, which name specific national implementations.

CHW

Community Health Worker. A health worker who is a member of, and selected by, the community they serve, supported by but not necessarily part of the formal health system, and with shorter training than a professional health worker. CHIS foundational terms

CI

Continuous Integration. Automatically building and testing every change pushed to a repository, so integration problems surface early. DHIS2 repositories run CI on every pull request.

CMAM

Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition. Approach to identifying and treating acute malnutrition in the community using ready-to-use therapeutic food, rather than requiring inpatient therapeutic feeding. Used with MUAC screening.

Also written: "Community Management of Acute Malnutrition". Both forms are in circulation.

COC

Category option combination (also written category option combo). The disaggregation attached to a data element — the combination of category options such as "Female, under 15" that a data value is broken down by. In the API this is the categoryOptionCombo field. Additional data dimensions

Not to be confused with: AOC, the attribute option combination, which attaches to a data set.

CoP

Community of Practice. The DHIS2 community forum, where users, implementers and the core team ask questions and share solutions. community.dhis2.org

CORS

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. The HTTP header mechanism by which a server tells the browser which other origins may load its resources. DHIS2 has a CORS allowlist setting, which custom apps hosted outside the instance need to be added to.

CR

Client Registry. In OpenHIE architecture, the component holding a single authoritative index of client identities across systems.

CRS

Coordinate Reference System. In DHIS2 Maps and GIS work, the spatial reference used for coordinates. DHIS2 supports only EPSG:4326 (geographic longitude/latitude). Maps user guide

Not to be confused with: Congenital Rubella Syndrome, which is what CRS means in DHIS2's vaccine-preventable disease surveillance material. Check which sense a document intends.

CRVS

Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. The national system for registering births, deaths and other vital events and producing vital statistics from them. A DHIS2 EIR can generate birth notifications into a CRVS. EIR design

Note: the final S is Statistics, not "Events".

CSP

Content Security Policy. An HTTP response header controlling which resources — particularly scripts — a page is allowed to load, chiefly as a defence against cross-site scripting.

CSTL

Care and Support for Teaching and Learning. SADC regional education framework addressing barriers to learning. Individual countries brand their national implementation differently; Eswatini's, for instance, is called Inqaba, which is a programme name rather than an acronym.

D¶

DAK

Digital Adaptation Kit. A WHO SMART Guidelines product: software-neutral operational requirements for a health area, comprising a data dictionary, decision-support logic, indicator dictionary and functional requirements. Several DHIS2 metadata packages are built from DAKs. Antenatal care registry design

DATIM

Data for Accountability, Transparency and Impact Monitoring. PEPFAR's central reporting system, built on a PEPFAR-specific version of DHIS2 and used in more than 50 countries. datim.org

Note: often truncated to "Data for Accountability, Transparency and Impact", which drops the M.

DE

Data element. DHIS2 shorthand for the metadata object representing what is being recorded — "Malaria cases treated", "Patient weight". Widely used in conversation and in configuration spreadsheets.

DHIS

District Health Information Software. The name of the original software, first developed from 1994 within the Health Information Systems Programme. Now historical: the current platform is called DHIS2. HISP and DHIS2 names

DHIS2

Not an abbreviation — a name. Since 2023 the official name of the software platform is simply DHIS2, and of the organisation simply HISP, "not as abbreviations, but as names in and of themselves". The names derive from District Health Information Software and Health Information Systems Programme, but the change was made deliberately: education ministries were reluctant to adopt something whose "H" stood for Health, even where DHIS2 had every feature their EMIS needed. DHIS2 is a generic data platform used across health, education, logistics, climate, agriculture and other sectors. HISP and DHIS2 names

Not to be confused with: "DHIS 2" with a space, the historical styling. Current documentation uses the compact form DHIS2.

DICE

Digital Health Centre of Excellence. Multi-agency initiative launched by UNICEF and WHO in 2021 (originally the COVID-19 Digital Health Centre of Excellence) coordinating donor support and country technical assistance in digital health. UNICEF digital health

Note: a stylised abbreviation rather than a strict initialism — the letters do not map word-for-word.

DPG

Digital Public Good. Open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards and open content that adhere to privacy and other best practices, do no harm by design, and are of high relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals. DHIS2 is a recognised DPG. digitalpublicgoods.net

Related: DPGA is the Digital Public Goods Alliance, which maintains the DPG Standard. DHIS2 is also sometimes described as a Global Public Good or as Digital Public Infrastructure.

E¶

ECCDE

Early Childhood Care and Development Education. Pre-primary education level, reported in several education-sector DHIS2 implementations.

eCHIS

Electronic Community Health Information System. Specifically, Ethiopia's national mobile CHIS, used by Health Extension Workers across thousands of health posts and covering many health programmes. Ethiopia MoH eCHIS

Not to be confused with: iCHIS, a separate integrated CHIS used in Malawi and elsewhere, or generic CHIS. Also written ECHIS.

eIDSR

Electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response. The digital implementation of IDSR, usually DHIS2-based, enabling real-time reporting from facilities and automated outbreak alerts. Tanzania architecture

Note: the leading "e" is electronic; glossing eIDSR as just "Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response" loses the distinction from IDSR itself. Also written e-IDSR and EIDSR.

EIR

Electronic Immunization Registry. An individual-level register, built on DHIS2 Tracker, following each child through the national vaccination schedule, with clinical decision support and optional birth notification to CRVS. EIR design

Also called: the DHIS2 package is titled "Immunization eRegistry"; EIR and eRegistry are used interchangeably.

eLMIS

Electronic Logistics Management Information System. The digital form of an LMIS. DHIS2 is used as a last-mile eLMIS and can integrate with upstream national eLMIS or ERP systems. DHIS2 for Logistics

EMIS

Education Management Information System. The education-sector counterpart of an HMIS: the national system for collecting, analysing and using data from schools and other institutions of learning. DHIS2 is used as an EMIS in a growing number of countries. DHIS2 for Education

Related: SEMIS is DHIS2's individual-level education solution.

EMPDSR

See MPDSR. Most likely a rendering of eMPDSR, the electronic form of Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response, following the e- prefix convention described at the top of this page. No DHIS2 source states this expansion directly, so it is offered as the near-miss rather than as a definition — if you know the intended sense, please correct this entry.

EMR

Electronic Medical Record. A patient's clinical record held in a facility-level system. DHIS2 is not itself an EMR, though DHIS2 Tracker overlaps with EMR use cases and DHIS2 is frequently integrated with EMRs. DHIS2 and electronic medical records

EMTCT

Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission. A validation goal for eliminating vertical transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B.

Not to be confused with: PMTCT, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, which is the intervention rather than the elimination target.

ESAVI

Events Supposedly Attributable to Vaccination or Immunization (Spanish: Eventos Supuestamente Atribuibles a la Vacunación o Inmunización). The PAHO and Latin American term for the concept English-language material calls AEFI. DHIS2 has a PAHO-developed ESAVI tracker. ESAVI in the CoP

ESSP

Education Sector Strategic Plan. A country's multi-year education strategy, and usually the source of the indicators an education-sector DHIS2 implementation must report.

F¶

FHIR

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. HL7's standard for exchanging health information electronically, built around modular "Resources". DHIS2 supports FHIR-based integration. hl7.org/fhir · DHIS2 and FHIR

Note: it is "Health**care**", not "Health", and "Resource**s**" plural. Both shortened forms are common but neither is HL7's.

FPE

Free Primary Education. Policy of removing school fees at primary level, and a reporting category in several education-sector implementations.

FSH

FHIR Shorthand. HL7's domain-specific language for authoring FHIR profiles and implementation guides. hl7.org

G¶

GPE

Global Partnership for Education. Multi-stakeholder partnership and the largest global fund dedicated to education in lower-income countries. globalpartnership.org

GRADEL

Almost certainly a misspelling of Gradle. Gradle is not an acronym — it is the build automation tool used by the DHIS2 Android SDK and the Android Capture app. Dependencies are declared in build.gradle and APKs are built with commands such as gradlew assembleRelease. Android SDK getting started · Compiling and distributing the Capture app

GS1

Not an abbreviation — an organisation name. GS1 is the global non-profit standards organisation responsible for barcodes and related identification standards used in supply chains, including health commodity traceability. Relevant to DHIS2 logistics work. gs1.org

H¶

HIE

Health Information Exchange. Both the secure electronic sharing of health information between authorised organisations, and the infrastructure that provides it. See also OpenHIE.

HIS

Health Information System. The general term for a system that collects, manages and uses health data. HMIS is the management-oriented subset most DHIS2 implementations occupy.

HISP

Not an abbreviation — a name. Since 2023 the official name of the organisation is simply HISP. It began in 1994 as the Health Information Systems Programme, a collaborative action research project between the University of Oslo and the University of the Western Cape. Today HISP refers both to the HISP Centre at the University of Oslo, which coordinates the DHIS2 project, and to the global network of HISP groups. HISP and DHIS2 names · HISP network

HMIS

Health Management Information System. The national system for routine health service data used to manage the health system. DHIS2 is the most widely used HMIS platform globally. DHIS2 for HMIS

Not to be confused with: CHIS, which covers community-level rather than facility-level data.

I¶

i18n

Internationalization. Designing software so it can be adapted to other languages and regions without engineering changes. The numeronym uses 18, the number of letters between the i and the n. w3.org

Related: l10n is localization, the adaptation itself. DHIS2 translations are contributed via Transifex.

ICD-10

International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10^th Revision. WHO's classification of diseases and causes of death, in effect since 1993 and widely used in DHIS2 metadata and option sets. WHO classifications

Note: ICD-11 has been in effect since 2022 and is the version WHO now promotes; both are in active use in country systems. "International Classification of Diseases" is the accepted short form of the title.

iCHIS

Integrated Community Health Information System. A DHIS2-based integrated CHIS used in Malawi and other countries.

Not to be confused with: eCHIS, Ethiopia's separate system, or generic CHIS. The three are routinely conflated.

IDRS

See IDSR. A common transposition of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response. There is no separate term IDRS in DHIS2 use.

IDSR

Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response. WHO strategy, particularly in the African region, that integrates surveillance functions for multiple diseases onto a single platform. Tanzania architecture

Not to be confused with: eIDSR, its electronic implementation. Also frequently mistyped IDRS.

IHE

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise. Standards-profiling initiative that specifies and tests interoperable healthcare workflows; formally IHE International. Publisher of the ADX profile. ihe.net

IMCI

Integrated Management of Childhood Illness. WHO and UNICEF strategy with clinical algorithms and training for managing the leading causes of illness and death in children under five at first-level facilities. WHO

Note: WHO's programme title is singular "Illness"; the plural "Illnesses" is common in country usage.

IPD

Inpatient Department. The hospital department for admitted patients, and the source of admission, length-of-stay and bed-occupancy indicators.

Not to be confused with: OPD, the outpatient department.

J¶

JAR

Java Archive. A ZIP-based file bundling Java class files and resources into one archive. Oracle

JPA

Jakarta Persistence API, formerly the Java Persistence API. The Java standard for object-relational mapping, used by DHIS2 via Hibernate. jakarta.ee

L¶

LEG

Local Education Group. The in-country coordination group of government and partners in GPE-supported education planning.

LIMS

Laboratory Information Management System. System for managing laboratory samples, workflows and results. Frequently integrated with DHIS2 so that lab results reach patient records and disease surveillance. On lab integration

Not to be confused with: LIS, which is closely related but not identical, or LMIS, which is about logistics rather than laboratories.

LIS

Laboratory Information System. A system supporting laboratory operations. Used almost interchangeably with LIMS, though the two carry subtly different emphases — LIS leans clinical, LIMS leans sample and workflow management. On lab integration

LMIC

Low- and Middle-Income Country. World Bank income classification, and the setting in which most DHIS2 implementations run. World Bank country groups

Note: in World Bank data usage LMIC also denotes specifically a lower-middle-income country, alongside LIC and UMIC. Check which reading a document intends.

LMIS

Logistics Management Information System. A system for tracking health commodity stock, consumption and distribution. In DHIS2 contexts this is nearly always the logistics sense: DHIS2 is used as a last-mile LMIS for facility and community stock management, and integrates with upstream eLMIS or ERP systems. DHIS2 for Logistics

Not to be confused with: Learning Management Information System, which appears in training and e-learning contexts and is a different thing entirely; or LIMS, the laboratory system.

LTA

Long-Term Agreement, also long-term arrangement. A standard UN procurement framework agreement with a supplier, against which individual contracts are placed without committing to a minimum quantity. UNICEF Supply Division

LTS

Long-Term Support. A software release designated for extended maintenance. Relevant to DHIS2 server administration for operating system and PostgreSQL upgrade planning.

LVI

No DHIS2 source defines this. It appears in DHIS2 lab-integration questions but is not used in DHIS2 documentation, the Community of Practice, or the developer portal, and is most likely a mistyping of LIS, LIMS or LMIS — try those three first. Rather than guess an expansion, this entry records that the term is undefined. If LVI means something specific where you work, please add it.

M¶

MFL

Master Facility List. The authoritative national register of health facilities, usually the source of the DHIS2 organisation unit hierarchy at facility level.

MICS

Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. UNICEF-supported international household survey programme producing key indicators on the situation of children and women. mics.unicef.org

Note: MICS6 denotes the sixth round of the programme, not an expansion of the acronym.

MICS-EAGLE

MICS — Education Analysis for Global Learning and Equity. UNICEF initiative re-analysing MICS education data through an equity lens to support education sector planning. mics.unicef.org

MoET

Ministry of Education and Training. The government department responsible for the education system in countries using that title; the counterpart to MoH for education-sector DHIS2 work. Exact ministry names vary by country.

MoH

Ministry of Health. The government department responsible for administering and monitoring the national health system, and the institutional owner of most national DHIS2 instances.

MPDSR

Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response. The continuous cycle of identifying, notifying, reviewing, analysing and responding to every maternal and perinatal death. DHIS2 has an MPDSR toolkit developed with UNFPA. MPDSR design

Note: the P is perinatal, not "prenatal".

MPL

Master Product List. The authoritative national list of health commodities, the logistics counterpart of an MFL.

MSC

Most Significant Change. A participatory qualitative monitoring and evaluation technique based on collecting and systematically selecting stories of change.

MUAC

Mid-Upper Arm Circumference. An anthropometric measurement, taken with a colour-coded tape, used to screen children aged 6–59 months for wasting. Appears throughout DHIS2 nutrition and community health metadata, often unexpanded, in data elements such as "New admission MUAC". UNICEF MUAC guidance

N¶

NCD

Noncommunicable Disease. Chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and cancers. CHIS foundational terms

Note: WHO house style is the unhyphenated "noncommunicable"; DHIS2 material uses both forms.

O¶

OPD

Outpatient Department. The facility department seeing patients without admitting them, and the source of OPD morbidity returns in many national HMIS.

Not to be confused with: IPD, the inpatient department.

OpenHIE

Open Health Information Exchange. Community and reference architecture specification for country-scale health information exchanges. DHIS2 commonly occupies the aggregate data warehouse role in an OpenHIE architecture. ohie.org

OVC

Orphans and Vulnerable Children. A programme and reporting category in both health and education contexts, notably in PEPFAR-funded work.

P¶

PAHO

Pan American Health Organization. Founded in 1902 and the world's oldest international public health agency; simultaneously the specialised health agency of the Inter-American System and the WHO Regional Office for the Americas. paho.org

PAT

Personal Access Token. A credential used instead of a password to authenticate to an API or to a Git host. DHIS2 supports personal access tokens for API authentication. Personal access tokens in DHIS2

PEPFAR

President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. United States government global HIV/AIDS programme launched in 2003, one of the earliest and largest DHIS2 funders, and the operator of DATIM. state.gov/pepfar

PHC

Primary Health Care. The first level of care, closest to the community, covering preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services. Also used in DHIS2 as an organisation unit group for primary-care facilities. CHIS foundational terms

PHEM

Public Health Emergency Management. The function and institutional arrangements for anticipating, preparing for, detecting, responding to and recovering from public health threats. Institutionalised as the PHEM Centre at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute. EPHI

Not to be confused with: PHEOC, the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, which is the facility rather than the function.

PI

Program Indicator. A DHIS2 Tracker metadata object that calculates a value from tracker data — event counts, averages of data element values, durations between dates — for use in analytics. Program indicators

PMTCT

Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission, of HIV. Programme area preventing vertical HIV transmission; DHIS2 Tracker programs follow mother-and-infant pairs longitudinally.

Not to be confused with: EMTCT, the elimination target.

PNC

Postnatal Care. Care for mother and newborn after delivery, commonly measured as PNC visits within a defined window.

PR

Pull Request. A proposal to merge a branch of changes into another branch, with review and automated checks before merging. The mechanism for contributing to DHIS2 code and documentation. GitHub docs

PSI

Population Services International. Non-profit global health organisation working on sexual and reproductive health, malaria, HIV and NCDs. psi.org

R¶

REO

Regional Education Office. A sub-national administrative level in education-sector implementations, typically an organisation unit level in DHIS2.

RHIS

Routine Health Information System. The system handling routinely collected service delivery data, as distinct from surveys or censuses. Closely related to HMIS.

RMNCAH

Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health. Health services spanning pre-pregnancy through adolescence; both a WHO analysis framework and a DHIS2 metadata package. RMNCAH aggregate design

Note: sometimes written with "Neonatal" in place of "Newborn".

RTL

Right-to-Left. Text direction for scripts written right to left, such as Arabic and Hebrew; relevant to DHIS2 localisation and app development. Paired with LTR (left-to-right). MDN

Not to be confused with: Register Transfer Level, a hardware design term, which is not what RTL means in a DHIS2 or internationalisation context.

RTSL

Resolve to Save Lives. Non-profit working with countries on epidemic preparedness and cardiovascular disease control, and a DHIS2 partner. resolvetosavelives.org

S¶

SABER

Systems Approach for Better Education Results. World Bank programme benchmarking national education policies and institutions against global good practice. World Bank

SADC

Southern African Development Community. Regional Economic Community of 16 member states, headquartered in Gaborone. sadc.int

Note: "Southern", not "South". The 1980 predecessor body was SADCC, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference.

SAMS

Student Administration Management System. Student administration software encountered alongside DHIS2 in education-sector implementations.

SARA

Service Availability and Readiness Assessment. WHO and USAID health facility survey generating tracer indicators on service availability and facility readiness. WHO

SDG

Sustainable Development Goal. The seventeen United Nations goals for 2030. DHIS2 is used for multi-sector SDG performance monitoring; SDG 4 is the education goal, reported through UIS. sdgs.un.org

SEMIS

School Education Management Information System. DHIS2 Tracker-based solution for individual-level education data — student enrolment, attendance, performance, results and transfers, plus a staff registry. SEMIS user guide

Also expanded as: "Student-Staff-School-EMIS" in some DHIS2 conference material. Both are in use.

SOP

Standard Operating Procedure. A documented process ensuring a task is performed consistently — for data quality checks, server maintenance or incident response, for example.

T¶

T2A

Tracker to Aggregate. The practice, and supporting tooling, of pre-aggregating DHIS2 Tracker data into aggregate data values so that analytics and dashboards perform acceptably at scale, rather than computing program indicators on the fly. Speeding up program indicators

TEA

Tracked Entity Attribute. In DHIS2 Tracker, an attribute that identifies a tracked entity — name, date of birth, national identifier — as opposed to a data element, which records what happened during an event. Captured once at enrolment and rarely changing. Defining the tracked entity

TEI

Tracked Entity Instance. A single registered tracked entity — one specific person, case or sample. Tracker data model

Note on currency: the API terminology changed in DHIS2 version 41. The tei and trackedEntityInstance parameters, paths and response keys are deprecated in favour of trackedEntity. TEI remains in wide conversational and training use, but new API work should use "tracked entity". Version 41 upgrade notes

TET

Tracked Entity Type. The kind of thing being tracked — Person, Case, Lab Sample, Village, or a commodity. A DHIS2 instance can have several tracked entity types configured. Defining the tracked entity

Not to be confused with: TEI, an individual instance of a type, or TEA, an attribute of one.

U¶

UID

Unique Identifier. In DHIS2, the 11-character alphanumeric identifier automatically assigned to every metadata and data object — ImspTQPwCqd, for example. Stable across systems and used throughout the API. Metadata object identifiers

UIS

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO's statistical office and the custodian UN agency for global SDG 4 education indicators. uis.unesco.org

UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UN specialised agency for education, science and culture, and custodian of the SDG 4 agenda.

UNICEF

United Nations Children's Fund. UN agency for children's rights, health, education and protection, and a DHIS2 partner and funder. unicef.org

Note: originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. The organisation was renamed in 1953 but kept the acronym, so the letters no longer map to the current name.

V¶

VPD

Vaccine-Preventable Disease. The class of diseases under immunisation-linked case surveillance. DHIS2's VPD case surveillance package covers nine of them. VPD case surveillance design

W¶

WAR

Web Archive, or web application archive. A JAR-format file with a .war extension packaging a Java web application. A DHIS2 core release ships as a WAR file deployed into Tomcat. Oracle

WHO

World Health Organization. The United Nations specialised agency for public health, founded in 1948. who.int

In other languages: French Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS); Spanish Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS). WHO regional offices are also referred to by acronym, for example WHO AFRO for the Regional Office for Africa and PAHO for the Americas.

Contributing an acronym¶

This page is maintained collaboratively. If an acronym is missing, wrong, or means something different where you work, please add or correct it.

The easiest route is the Edit (pencil) icon at the top of this page. It will fork the documentation repository for you, let you edit in the browser, and open a pull request. No local setup and no Git knowledge is required.

If you would rather not use GitHub, post in the acronyms thread on the Community of Practice and someone will add it for you.

What makes a good entry:

• The expansion first, in bold, then a sentence or two on what the thing is — not just what the letters stand for.
• A link where a useful one exists. Prefer a page in this documentation; a Community of Practice thread or the owning organisation's own site is fine too. Leave it out rather than linking something tangential.
• A source. Please only add an acronym you have actually seen used in DHIS2 documentation, the Community of Practice, Academy material, or a DHIS2 issue tracker. A plausible-looking expansion that turns out to be wrong is worse than a missing entry, because people and AI assistants will cite it.
• A disambiguation line where the acronym has a competing meaning, using the phrase Not to be confused with:. This is what allows a reader — or a search assistant — to tell which sense DHIS2 intends.
• Say so when it isn't an acronym. Some names, DHIS2 and HISP among them, are simply names. Recording that is more useful than inventing an expansion.
• Cross-references are welcome entries in their own right. If you searched for a term and it turned out to be a misspelling, a near-miss, or simply undefined anywhere, add it as a short see also pointing at the right entry. The next person to make the same mistake will land somewhere useful, and recording that a term is genuinely undefined is more honest than leaving a gap that invites a guess.

Acronyms specific to a single country programme are welcome where they appear in DHIS2 material, but please note the country so readers know the scope.