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Improving Nutrition through Community-based Approaches (INCA) Baseline Survey-2017

Narrative Description of Project: In response to persistent high under-nutrition levels in some regions of Bangladesh, USAID is planning to implement the Improving Nutrition through Community-based Approaches (INCA) Project. INCA will be a three-year effort to improve the nutritional status of women and children in select areas of Bhola, Lakshmipur, and Noakhali districts. The specific objective of the project is to improve nutritional practices during the “first thousand days of life”. This objective will be achieved through two intermediate results (IRs):

 

  • –IR1: Improved knowledge of communities on proper nutritional requirements during the first thousand days of life,
  • –IR2: Increased access to and use of health and nutrition services at community-based health facilities

Key interventions include the recruitment and training of Community Nutrition Promoters (CNP) to: 1) establish a network of gender-sensitive nutrition education and information services in communities with strong links to Community Clinics (CC) and other community-based health facilities including Union Health and Family Welfare centers (UHFWC) and Smiling Sun Clinics supported by the NGO Health Service Delivery Project (NHSDP); 2) build the nutrition skills of selected members of existing community clinic-based support groups to act as nutrition focal points and develop Community Nutrition Support Groups (CNSG); and, 3) better integrate nutrition with other MCH activities.

 

USAID/Bangladesh has requested that MEASURE Evaluation conduct a performance and impact evaluation of the INCA Project to assess results at the population-level.  MEASURE Evaluation, with the support of USAID, will examine changes in key outcome indicators related to INCA objectives and will evaluate the impact of INCA interventions at the population-level. The evaluation will be based on baseline and endline individual level data collected through household and women surveys in INCA intervention and comparison areas.  A short community survey was also be implemented at baseline and endline.

 

Objectives:

 

General objective: The general objective of the survey was to examine changes in the key indicators specified in the INCA Project and to evaluate the contribution of the INCA project to any of these changes.

 

Specific Objectives: The specific objectives of the baseline survey were:

 

  • To provide estimates of key practices, knowledge and access/use of MCH services indicators that are representative of the INCA target population (currently married women of reproductive age(15-49) with a child under 2 years of age and/or is pregnant)
  • To provide data from comparison areas to support the impact evaluation analysis
  • To provide data on community, household and individual characteristics that influence nutrition practices, knowledge and access/use of services in both INCA intervention and comparison areas.

Description of Actual Services Provided by Mitra:

  • Details

    Listing/Mapping of Household: The listing operation was conducted to identify women with a child under age 2 and pregnant women. A complete list of the target population (women with a child under 2 years and/or pregnant) was prepared and served as the sampling frame for the second stage sampling.

     

    Pre-testing and finalization of survey instruments: Mitra pre-tested the data collection tools. A group of 10 experienced people were recruited to conduct the pretest. Mitra analyzed the pre-test results and presented those to MEASURE (Monitoring and Evaluation to ASsess and Use REsults) Evaluation.

     

    Recruitment of Field Personnel: Field personnel included listers/enumerators, supervisors, quality control officers. The minimum educational qualification of field personnel was Bachelor degree from a recognized university.

     

    Training on Data Collection Operation: A two-week training program on data collection operation was organized for the field personnel including interviewers, supervisors and quality control officers. The everyday duration of classroom training was from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, with one hour-launch break. All the key personnel of the Survey Management Team and the other senior professionals of Mitra were engaged to impart the training. Training consisted of lectures, classroom practices, group discussions and role playing.

     

    Deployment of data collection teams: Eleven data collection teams were deployed for collection of data. Each field team consisted of one male supervisor, one female editor, five interviewers and a field logistic assistant. Data collection was carried out over a period of 3 months, in three phases, with each phase spanning over 24 days.

     

    Quality Control Checking: Four quality control teams were deployed for quality control checking of the survey data.  A quality control team comprised of two quality control officer. Quality control checking was designed to physically verify whether the interviewer completed the questionnaires by interviewing the right respondents in the right households by asking the right questions. Quality control checking was undertaken both in presence and absence of the interviewing team in a sample cluster.

     

    Monitoring of Fieldwork: Mitra generated field check tables during the fieldwork to monitor and check the quality of fieldwork. Based on the field check tables, performances of individual supervisors and individual interviewers were assessed and discussed with them.

     

    Data Entry/Processing Operations: One registration officer did the registration work, and stored and maintained the questionnaires. He also supplied the questionnaires for use by other data processing staff and receive these records back when their use was over. Editing, coding and data entry was started within 2 weeks of initiation of data collection. The final dataset was delivered to MEASURE Evaluation for analysis.

     

    Name of Client: The University of North Carolina at chaple Hill (UNC-CH), UNC- Chapel Hill/Carolina Population Center, 400 Meadowmont Village Circle, 3rd Floor Chapel Hill, NC 27517, Phone (919) 962-6232.

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