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person-time

English translation: people and time

13:04 May 21, 2018
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Medical - Medical: Health Care
English term or phrase: person-time
"Sufficient person-time is required at district, provincial and national levels for data acquisition from health information departments; importing, merging, cleaning and analysing data; mapping; and producing surveillance bulletins and reports".

I'm not sure of the meaning of 'person-time' in the above sentence. Does it mean that a sufficient number of persons needs to be monitored for sufficient periods of time?
Muhammad Atallah
Egypt
Local time: 23:15
Selected answer:people and time
Explanation:
It means that an adequate number of people must be allocated to the task, and each must be given enough time to do it. We used to say "man-hours", but fortunately not any more.

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Note added at 10 mins (2018-05-21 13:15:29 GMT)
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It's not the people being monitored, it's the people doing the monitoring.
Selected response from:

philgoddard
United States
Grading comment
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4 +4people and time
philgoddard


  

Answers


9 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +4
people and time


Explanation:
It means that an adequate number of people must be allocated to the task, and each must be given enough time to do it. We used to say "man-hours", but fortunately not any more.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 10 mins (2018-05-21 13:15:29 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

It's not the people being monitored, it's the people doing the monitoring.

philgoddard
United States
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 12
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you! I appreciate your help.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Tina Vonhof (X)
1 hr
agree  Charles Davis: "Worker-hours" seems to be the favoured term now. Strictly speaking, it doesn't say anything about how many people or how much time, but only the product of the two. Perhaps "hours of work" would express it. One person might do, given enough time.
4 hrs
agree  jccantrell: It used to be 'man-hours' back when I started, but you see how that is no longer acceptable in the English-speaking world.
2 days 3 hrs
agree  Yvonne Gallagher: worker hours
4 days
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