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Jun 22, 2015

Transportation: The Key to Effective Last-Mile Distribution in Zambia

Subjects: Supply Chain, USAID
Countries: Zambia

An effective health service comprises many components, including a well-functioning supply chain; the availability of commodities at the health facility is one key part of the logistics system that ensures the end user can receive the health service they need. Delivering health commodities to the last mile, the point of service delivery, involves many processes and several modes of transportation. Commodities must come from manufacturers— often in foreign countries—to national warehouses, then to local storage units, and finally to the local health facility. In the countries where the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT implements supply chain programs, logisticians employ several models for the delivery of health supplies to service delivery points.

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Jun 22, 2015

Roadmap for Health Measurement and Accountability

Subjects: Tools, USAID, WHO

The Roadmap articulates a shared strategic approach to support effective measurement and accountability systems for a country’s health programs. The Roadmap outlines smart investments that countries can adopt to strengthen basic measurement systems and to align partners and donors around common priorities. It offers a platform for development partners, technical experts, implementers, civil society organizations, and decision makers to work together for health measurement in the post-2015 era.

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Apr 2, 2015

Benchmarking health system performance across districts in Zambia: a systematic analysis of levels and trends in key maternal and child health interventions from 1990 to 2010

Subjects: Monitoring & Evaluation, Practices, Standards, Tools, USAID
Countries: Zambia

Achieving universal health coverage and reducing health inequalities are primary goals for an increasing number of health systems worldwide. Timely and accurate measurements of levels and trends in key health indicators at local levels are crucial to assess progress and identify drivers of success and areas that may be lagging behind.

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Jan 29, 2015

Idea to Impact: A Guide To Introduction and Scale

Subjects: Practices, USAID
Countries: Global

The challenges of developing, introducing and scaling global health solutions – whether they are medical devices, drugs, diagnostics, vaccines or consumer products – are innumerable. As a result, it often takes years, sometimes decades, for these products to reach most of their intended users. By describing priority activities and their importance, supplemented with inspirational case studies and practical tools, IDEA to IMPACT is intended to help global health practitioners accelerate impact through better coordination and earlier planning

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Aug 27, 2012

Nigeria Immunization Fact Sheet

Subjects: EPI Plan, Tools, USAID
Countries: Nigeria

According to official country reports, infant immunization coverage in Nigeria, as reported by DTP3, increased significantly from 57% in 2008 to 74% in 2010. This was followed by a significant drop to 61% in 2011. These reported coverage improvements were primarily due to the country’s decision in 2006 to add multiple antigens and other child survival interventions to the polio eradication campaigns (now referred to as Immunization Plus Days or IPDs) that are held every 4-6 weeks in the northern polio endemic states and at least twice per year nationally. Given the challenges with disaggregating IPD and routine immunization data sub-nationally, denominator issues, and also increased routine immunization focus nationwide through the Reaching Every Ward (REW) approach, official country estimates have greatly fluctuated since 2007.

Download File: vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document (3.9 MB)

Aug 1, 2012

Improving Data Use in Decision Making: An Intervention to Strengthen Health Systems

Subjects: Policies, Practices, PRISM (Performance of Routine Information System Management), Regulation, Standards, Supportive Supervision, Tools, Training, USAID
Countries: Global

Health systems strengthening has become a top priority of many global and national health agendas as a way to improve health outcomes. With the global health context becoming increasingly complex, national health systems are beginning to move away from a focus on disease-specific health responses to comprehensive strengthening of health systems. This paper will discuss the unique role of health data in strengthening the other five building blocks of health systems; define specific interventions to strengthen the use of data in decision making; and provide a framework for developing, monitoring, and evaluating interventions to improve the use of and demand for data.

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Feb 20, 2012

A systematic review of Demographic and Health Surveys: data availability and utilization for research

Subjects: Policies, USAID, WHO
Countries: Global

The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) project, funded primarily by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with support from other donors and host countries, has conducted over 230 nationally representative and internationally comparable household surveys in more than 80 countries since its inception in 1984. The purpose of this study is to quantify the extent to which DHS data have been used in peer-reviewed research publications and trends in such use over time. Findings from the study will contribute to a better understanding of how DHS data have been transformed into information and made available for policy and programmatic use.

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Nov 1, 2012

Methods and issues in household surveys of vaccination coverage

Subjects: Unicef, USAID
Countries: Global

The prevalence of vaccination, or vaccination coverage, is an important indicator of public health and of the effectiveness of a country's public health infrastructure. This report reviews coverage estimation methods, giving most attention to survey-based methods used in low and middle-income countries, which are often held as the

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Jun 13, 2014

Summary of Survey Gap Analysis for DHS & MICS

Subjects: GAVI, Unicef, USAID
Countries: Global

The two most common household surveys conducted in developing countries to obtain nationally representative estimates of immunization coverage are the USAID-financed Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and UNICEF-financed Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).  These surveys use similar methods and their results in terms of quality and precision are generally comparable.

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