BACKGROUND Improving maternal and child health remains a top priority in Nigeria's Bauchi State in the northeastern region where the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) are as high as 1540 per 100,000 live births and 78 per 1,000 live births respectively. In this study, we used the framework of the continuum of maternal and child care to evaluate the impact of interve...

This paper compared the performance of the lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS) method in identifying inadequately-performing health work-areas with that of using health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) data and examined the feasibility of applying the method by field-level programme supervisors. The study was carried out in Matlab, the field site of ICDDR,B, where a HDSS has been in...

BACKGROUND The Better Health Outcomes through Mentoring and Assessment (BHOMA) project is a cluster randomized controlled trial aimed at reducing age-standardized mortality rates in three rural districts through involvement of Community Health Workers (CHWs), Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs), and Neighborhood Health Committees (NHCs). CHWs conduct quarterly surveys on all households using a ...

Assessment of 12 microscopy centers in a tuberculosis unit by blinded checking of eight sputum smears selected by using a lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS) method and by unblinded checking of all positive and five negative slides, among the slides examined in a month in a microscopy centre, revealed that the LQAS method can be implemented in the field to monitor the performance of acid-fast...

Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) surveys have become increasingly popular in global health care applications. Incorporating Bayesian ideas into LQAS survey design, such as using reasonable prior beliefs about the distribution of an indicator, can improve the selection of design parameters and decision rules. In this paper, a joint frequentist and Bayesian framework is proposed for evaluati...

The key to high impact health services is institutionalizing and sustaining programme evaluation. Uganda represents a success story in the use of a specific programme evaluation method: Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS). Institutionalization is defined by two C's: competent programme evaluators and control mechanisms that effectively use evaluation data to improve health services. Sustainab...

BACKGROUND Data collection techniques that routinely provide health system information at the local level are in demand and needed. LQAS is intended for use by local health teams to collect data at the district and sub-district levels. Our question is whether local health staff produce biased results as they are responsible for implementing the programs they also assess. METHODS This test-ret...