Collection: Measuring Effectiveness Beyond Coverage

For health campaigns to be deemed successful, results must go beyond coverage to ensure lasting impact. Often, it can be difficult to determine how best to assess the success of campaigns, which can include metrics on topics of equity, access, and sustainability. The following set of resources offer considerations for how health campaign implementers and researchers can think about adopting more expansive approaches to measuring effectiveness:

Test & Learn: Opportunities to Expand Campaign Effectiveness Measures Beyond Coverage

In June 2021, Dr. Andreas Hasman, Nutrition Specialist at the UNICEF Programme Division, presented an overview of the findings from his team’s research into alternative effectiveness measures that would be beneficial to program managers. 11 parameters were identified including community awareness, community acceptance, sustainability, access, availability, service quality, clinical outcomes, responsiveness, equity, efficiency, and resilience. This resource includes a video of Dr. Hasman’s presentation as well as a PowerPoint presentation on his research. View Dr. Hasman’s literature review, which contains many relevant resources, here.

Transitioning from Donor Support: Lessons Learned from Nigeria’s Gavi Transition Plan Development

To sustain the country’s gains and maintain the quality of primary health care service delivery following Gavi’s investments, the Government of Nigeria, through the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), developed Nigeria’s Strategy for Immunization and PHC System Strengthening (NSIPSS) in 2017. The NSIPSS is a 10-year strategy document that defines the country’s plan to transition from Gavi support. This plan, which was developed in collaboration with partners, highlights the financial and programmatic decisions that Nigeria will need to make to attain at least 84 percent equitable and sustained national immunization coverage for all antigens by 2028. The transition plan initially started as a 5-year strategic plan (2017 – 2021) but eventually became a 10-year plan following negotiations with Gavi.

This piece shares some of the critical lessons from Nigeria’s experience in developing a Gavi transition plan, which could help countries plan for the transition and transition extension from one donor support or the other.

 

Promoting gender, equity, human rights and ethnic equality in neglected tropical disease programmes

This article discusses how progress in tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) is hindered when topics such as equity, ethnicity, and human rights are ignored or excluded. The authors make a case for incorporating equity analysis and a person-centered approach as part of national NTD programs’ routine activities.

 

Ending the neglect to attain the sustainable development goals: a framework for monitoring and evaluating progress of the road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021−2030

This framework is a call to action to countries and implementing partners with fully defined operational impact indicators for greater accountability and action, starting at the country level. It aims to provide guidance on mainstreaming the monitoring and evaluation of neglected tropical diseases within health information systems and emphasizes that monitoring and evaluation are integral components of interventions against neglected tropical diseases. The framework highlights the importance of standardization of indicators and defines the core set and the additional indicators to ensure comparability across the different implementational levels as well as across countries.

 

Factors Likely to Affect Community Acceptance of a Malaria Vaccine in Two Districts of Ghana: A Qualitative Study

Malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children in Ghana. As part of the effort to inform local and national decision-making in preparation for possible malaria vaccine introduction, this qualitative study explored community-level factors that could affect vaccine acceptance in Ghana and provides recommendations for a health communications strategy.

The study was conducted in two purposively selected districts: the Ashanti and Upper East Regions. A total of 25 focus group discussions, 107 in-depth interviews, and 21 semi-structured observations at Child Welfare Clinics were conducted. Malaria was acknowledged to be one of the most common health problems among children. While mosquitoes were linked to the cause and bed nets were considered to be the main preventive method, participants acknowledged that no single measure prevented malaria. The communities highly valued vaccines and cited vaccination as the main motivation for taking children to Child Welfare Clinics. Nevertheless, knowledge of specific vaccines and what they do was limited.

While communities accepted the idea of minor vaccine side effects, other side effects perceived to be more serious could deter families from taking children for vaccination, especially during vaccination campaigns. Attendance at Child Welfare Clinics after age nine months was limited. Observations at clinics revealed that while two different opportunities for counseling were offered, little attention was given to addressing mothers’ specific concerns and to answering questions related to child immunization. Positive community attitudes toward vaccines and the understanding that malaria prevention requires a comprehensive approach would support the introduction of a malaria vaccine. These attitudes are bolstered by a well-established child welfare program and the availability in Ghana of active, flexible structures for conveying health information to communities. At the same time, it would be important to improve the quality of Child Welfare Clinic services, particularly in relation to communication around vaccination.

Gender Equality and Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS)

This resource produced by the Global Alliance for Vitamin A (GAVA) intends to assist country programs in identifying gender equality and equity considerations in their VAS programs utilizing a sex- and gender-based analysis (SGBA). Authors define key terms such as gender-unaware programs, gender-responsive programs, gender-transformative programs, gender equity, gender equality, and gender mainstreaming. Additionally, gender mainstreaming in planning and training, and awareness-raising and demand-generation is also discussed.

WHO: How can the sustainability of a public health (food fortification) program be ensured?

This rapid response document was developed for a Uganda policymaker by the Regional East African Community Health (REACH) Policy Initiative. It explores the importance of “routinization” and “standardization” processes which assess program sustainability, as well as the idea that implementation and standardization are concomitant.

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