BACKGROUND: In 1999, USAID/Nicaragua contacted the NGO Networks for Health project to implement activities in Hurricane Mitch-affected areas of Nicaragua through international PVOs and local NGOs..
METHODOLOGY: NicaSalud developed a state of the art Lot Quality Assurance Sampling system for local supervisors of 8 PVOs to monitor interventions in their own areas. LQAS uses binomials to determine whether a local area reached a predetermined coverage level. Data were also aggregated to measure coverage at geographical and national levels.
RESULTS: 67% of most recent births were unintended with 92% of first births (in women <24 years) being before the age of 20. Although 83% of deliveries of recent births were attended by a medical trained provider, 42% were in the home. 65% received postnatal care from a medically trained provider. 21% of women and 10% of men knew 2 or more pregnancy danger signs. While 26% and 17%, respectively, knew postnatal maternal danger signs. 22% of mothers knew 2 of more newborn danger signs. While 33% of men knew at least 2 STI symptoms in men, 11% knew symptoms in women. While 12% of women knew at least 2 STI symptoms in men, 14% knew symptoms in women. While 95% of men and 87% of women had heard of HIV/AIDS, 42% and 30% knew how to prevent its transmission. Confidence intervals for these results are less than +5%. Monitoring data show program improvements over 1 year.
CONCLUSIONS: The LQAS method proved to be an excellent method to enhance a programs impact.
Learning Objectives: 1.Demonstrated application of LQAS methodology for rapid and regular community health program monitoring 2. Provided lessons learned to reduce time needed to introduce community health program monitoring 3. Demonstrated how small samples produced with monitoring data can be aggregated to produce accurate population based measures reflecting health system performance.
Keywords: Child Health, Safe Mother Program
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.