Narrative Description of Project: icddr.b, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Government of Bangladesh is implementing the project supported by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) through the Swiss Tropical of Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH). The objectives of the survey are:

• To estimate the percentage of fully immunized children (FIC) aged 12-23 months;
• To identify the factors associated with non-FIC status such as gender, birth order, mother’s education, households’ socio-economic status, and distance to EPI outreach clinics/facilities.

This cross-sectional survey/study is carried out in 4 slums covered by the urban health and demographic surveillance system (UHDSS) of icddr,b. The slums are, namely, Korail bosti, Mirpur bosti, Sharnpur-Dholpur bosti and Tongi-Ershadnagar bosti, having together a population of 122,000 individuals living in 32,000 households. These people migrated from rural areas to the city in search of better livelihoods for themselves and their families. The slum population mostly live below the poverty line and have limited access to the economic and social systems, services and benefits of the city.

Mitra collected the information on vaccination of the children, their parents’ education and occupation, and their household socioeconomic status (SES), visiting their households and interviewing their mothers. GPS coordinates of all the 1,766 children’s households and the 50 EPI outreach centers in the 4 slums are collected to measure the distance from the children’s residence to EPI centers. 

Data is collected through a face-to-face interview of a mother on vaccination status of her children and household characteristics.

Responsibilities for Mitra and Associates:

Mitra has conducted the following activities for the survey:

• Translation/pre-testing/finalization of questionnaires;
• Development of interviewer/supervisor manual, monitoring and quality control tools;
• Development of field work procedure;
• Recruitment and training for the field personnel;
• Supervise, monitoring and quality control of fieldwork;
• Data processing;
• Supervise, monitoring and quality control of data processing;
• Submission of clean data set;
• Resolve any technical issues in consultation with the team leader and icddr,b if needed;
• Maintaining liaison with icddr,b.

The survey was awarded by International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and funded by Swiss Tropical of Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH). 

Duration: October 30, 2018-March 31, 2019.

Contact reference: SM Manzoor Ahmed Hanifi, Associate Scientist, HSPSD, icddr,b, Centre Equty and Health System, Email: hanifi@icddrb.org, Mobile: 01720 356052, Phone: Direct: +880 2 8810021 & Tel: +880 2 9840523-32 Exten. 2240, Fax: +880 2 8826050, Web: www.icddrb.org.