The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66162

Maribel A. B. Maņibo, Research & Evaluation, Ipas, Inc., 300 Market Street ste. #200, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, 919-960-5717, manibom@ipas.org and Tamara Fetters, MPH, Research and Evaluation Unit, Ipas, 300 Market St, Ste 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.

Monitoring the reach of reproductive health training and awareness-raising events is often hindered by the resource-intensive tasks of collecting, cleaning and validating the necessary data. This is especially challenging when events are conducted in a wide variety of mostly developing countries by either in-country staff or consultants, where personnel responsible for maintaining data quality are usually several steps removed from the source(s). The Global Event Monitoring (G.E.M.) web-based system was developed by an international reproductive health organization to systematically aggregate these geographically dispersed event data, formerly collected and tabulated manually. It also enabled the organization to expand the kinds of information that could be captured, for example, distribution of service delivery points by level and sector, cadres of providers and types of training methodologies. Routine data management was decentralized and made cost-effective and manageable for trainers and event organizers, in-country offices, and the monitoring & evaluation unit. Trainers and event organizers, those closest to the work, can report their event information through any computer with reliable Internet access directly into a secure, central database. Certain reporting functions are also built in to allow real-time access to summary information on reported events that have been conducted anywhere in the world. The data is readily accessible through an Access front-end application, allowing for production of a wide variety of reports for programmatic planning and decision-making. This session will focus on lessons learned from the development and implementation of G.E.M. and will also present data collected from its first year of implementation.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, participants will be able to articulate key factors that affect the successful implementation of a decentralized web-based system to monitor the scope and reach of various international reproductive health training, information-sharing and awareness-raising events.

Keywords: Reproductive Health, Information Databases

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: I am a regular employee of Ipas