Faculty of Public Health (FPH) Universitas Indonesia (UI) student team achieved another proud achievement at the 2023 IPHO (Indonesian Public Health Olympiad) event organized by AIPTKMI (Association of Indonesian Public Health Universities). At the final of The 2nd Indonesian Public Health Olympiad (IPHO) which was held at FIK UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta on 8-9 November 2023, a team consisting of 2020 Public Health Regular Undergraduate students, Rowena Sofia Zepanya, Annabel Serafina, and Yolanda Claudia Zipora, was crowned as 1st Place in the Health Information Systems Competition with the innovation title “CanteenCare: You are What You Eat, Information System for Healthy Eating Patterns for High School Students”.
The importance of paying attention to the diet of high school students as an important transition group from childhood to adulthood has given rise to the innovation “CanteenCare” which integrates nutritional monitoring, health education and food hygiene supervision in the canteen. “The reason is as simple as our worries during high school, it’s like maintaining a healthy eating pattern is difficult. If you’re in elementary school or middle school, you still like to be provided with food, so you’ll be more careful about portions and nutrition, if you’re in high school, you rarely bring provisions as usual. “Apart from that, there are quite a lot of incidents of food poisoning among teenagers and students, which definitely needs attention too,” said Rowena. CanteenCare is present as a health information system that acts as a canteen food menu database and a medium for students to order canteen food. Through CanteenCare, students can order canteen food according to the application flow that has been designed, then the canteen seller will make orders according to the orders entered in the application. It is hoped that CanteenCare can increase student awareness about balanced eating patterns and provide important data to support decisions on health programs and interventions in schools.
This information system also acts as a nutrition education platform, where every time a student buys certain food or drinks, educational messages will appear regarding the nutritional content of the food purchased. Through the CanteenCare health information system, high schools that implement it will be able to monitor their students’ nutritional consumption and take quick action if there is an incident of food poisoning. Apart from paying attention to the nutritional balance of students, the school can also pay attention to the hygiene of the food in the school canteen area. If there is an incident of food poisoning, the school can follow up quickly so as not to have an impact on increasing other incidents of poisoning.
Rowena and the team hope that the government can support the use of the “CanteenCare” information system application through coordination with the Health Service to conduct outreach to schools in various regions. To support maximum and orderly use, the government can make policies regarding the use of this application in schools as well as policies that can regulate the nutritional quality and cleanliness of food sold in school canteens. Apart from that, the school can also play a role by providing training and outreach to traders in the school canteen to support maximum application utilization. Not only that, to improve students’ health status, schools can also utilize available data to carry out interventions. Through the education available in CanteenCare, Rowena and the team are optimistic that this application can increase the understanding of 70% of students in each high school partner regarding the importance of a balanced diet. In 6 months from the initial launch, CanteenCare is expected to be able to partner with a minimum of 10 priority high schools in the Jakarta area.
In fact, there were challenges faced by Rowena, Annabel, and Yolanda while taking part in this competition, namely the difficulty of arranging time together because they were busy in semester 7, namely internships. However, there was a supervisor, Dr. Drs. Tris Eryando, M.A., Lecturer at the Department of Biography and Population, FPH UI, really helped Rowena and her team in preparing this paper. “Whether we win or lose, we can learn a lot from competitions, and it is a really good opportunity for us to apply the things we learn in class,” said Rowena.
Deputy Dean for Education, Research and Student Affairs FPH UI, Dr. Ir. Asih Setiarini, M.Sc., is very proud of the achievements achieved by the students. “The faculty is proud of the students who were able to win 1st place in this Health Information Systems Competition. With so many types of food that are interesting to consume, people, especially high school students, still have to be careful in choosing food. I think the information system, CanteenCare, which was developed by these students, will provide education to the public, especially high school students who are most exposed to various contemporary foods. CanteenCare will really help high school students to be able to choose healthy food that is sold in the canteen. “Because healthy and nutritious food choices will also help students meet their nutritional needs which are very important for growth, especially in adolescence where various kinds of nutritional intake are needed to improve the quality of our human resources,” concluded Dr. Asih. (DFD)