Data Demand and Information Use in the Health Sector: Case Study Series

MEASURE Evaluation has created the 34-page Data Demand and Information Use (DDIU) Case Studies series, intending to illustrate instances where data and information have been used in a variety of settings, as well as examples of how interventions have successfully facilitated data demand and changed how information is used within the MEASURE Evaluation project.


For each case study presented in the series, DDIU identifies the “point of entry” for promoting data demand and information use interventions. The entry point depends upon understanding how data supply, information demand, and capacities for use all interrelate within a given context. The document then presents each element of the data demand and information use continuum with evidence from MEASURE Evaluation projects, showing a cycle supported by collaboration, coordination, and capacity building. The elements and use continuum are the following:

• "Data demand describes the information stakeholders are actively and openly requesting.
• Data collection/analysis describes the various methods and tools used to address data and information gaps.
• Information availability illustrates ways that data and information are disseminated and made publicly available in a format that is understandable and useful to the user.
• Information use provides examples of key actionable research findings that have been used in the process of evidence-based decision-making, as well as examples of how interventions have successfully changed how information is used...."

Communication-related examples from two of the case studies include:

1. Because little is known about the implications for health of slum life Bangladesh, stakeholders, as stated here, have had difficulty in focusing health- and human welfare-related programmes. After establishing maps of city districts and identifying slum settlements, teams assessed conditions on the ground in each ward of the city and then integrated the information into the maps. Use of the maps includes:
   
   
   • The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is using the maps to place birthing huts in slums and will use the information to focus expansion of their health programme for the urban economically poor.
   • The Bangladesh AIDS Program is using the information to plan the future location of counselling and treatment centres for most-at-risk populations (e.g. sex workers, drug users, truck drivers, rickshaw pullers, etc.), who disproportionately reside in slums.
   • The USAID-funded non-governmental organisation (NGO) Service Delivery Program is using the maps to identify locations for its main and satellite clinics for its next five-year phase.
   • Family Health International (FHI)/Bangladesh intends to use the maps to track its own intervention sites and areas of programme coverage for various programmes.

   
   
   

2. In Ghana, there was inadequate information for districts to use in developing their strategic HIV/AIDS plans. The Ghana AIDS Commission piloted and then adapted the Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) protocol for the Ghanaian context, trained interviewers to conduct the three surveys that are the key data collection activities in the protocol, and identified criteria for selecting districts to participate in the PLACE assessments. Data use workshops built the capacity of teams to analyse the survey data and prepare their own district PLACE reports, and to plan for district action planning workshops where a broad group of shareholders would translate PLACE findings into prioritised HIV/AIDS interventions. District teams identified priority interventions for providing care and support to people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs); monitoring of activities of NGOs; and preventing new HIV/AIDS transmission.

In conclusion, the examples of approaches and tools that have been used to increase the demand for data and use of information follow the principles of participation, collaboration, capacity building, and demand-driven data collection. As stated in the document, "the ultimate goal of evidence-based decision making is to improve health by improving the health system’s ability to respond to health needs at all levels."


MEASURE Evaluation is funded by the United States (US) Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina (NC) at Chapel Hill, NC, US, in partnership with Constella Futures, John Snow, Inc., Macro International Inc., and Tulane University.