Reliability of Community Health Workers Collected Data for Planning and Policy In A Peri-Urban Area of Kisumu, Kenya

Introduction

Reliable and timely information is foundational to public health action and health systems strengthening, nationally and internationally (Bradshaw et al., 2003; Aqil et al., 2009). The need for sound information is especially urgent in acute health threats, where rapid awareness, investigation and response can save lives and prevent outbreaks and even global pandemics (Aqil et al., 2009).

Kenya government has rolled out the community based health care as a way of improving health care at the household level. This includes training Community Health Workers (CHW) as service providers at community level. Among tasks undertaken by CHW is collection of health data at the household level, which is analyzed and used for decision making at various levels for action for populations’ health status improvement. This paper presents the results of a study undertaken by the Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development (TICH), to establish the reliability CHW collected data, in order to recommend it a source of data for evidence based decision making, planning, policy formulation, and for monitoring progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) continuously.

Objective

To investigate the reliability of Community Based Information System.

 

Methods

CHW were trained in household data collection. They collected the data. Ten percent of households visited by CHWs were systematically sampled for validation through repeat data collection by a technical team of research assistants. Test / retest method was applied to establish reliability of the data. The Kappa score, sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive values were used to measure reliability.

Findings

Latrine availability, Antenatal care attendance, use of skilled delivery and exclusive breast feeding demonstrated good consistency between the two sets of data. Immunization coverage showed less consistency.

Conclusions and Recommendations.

CHW collected data is reliable for decision making particularly in resource poor settings. 294 words