141st APHA Annual Meeting

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Opening every door - reaching the last child with opv in uttar pradesh, India: Role of management information system in social and behaviour change communication programmes

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Manojkumar Choudhary, MA , Master of Population Studies (MPS) , CGPP India Secretariat, CORE Group Polio Project India, Gurgaon 122002, India
Roma Solomon, MBBS , CGPP India Secretariat, CORE Group Polio Project India, Gurgaon 122002, India
Jitendra Awale, B.Sc, Master of Social Work (MSW) , CGPP India Secretariat, CORE Group Polio Project India, Gurgaon 122002, India
Rina Dey, BFA, MA in Journalism and Mass Communication , CGPP India Secretariat, CORE Group Polio Project India, Gurgaon 122002, India
Background: In 1999, introduction of house-to-house OPV immunization under the polio eradication initiative in India revealed community-level resistance to OPV vaccine. Responding to this, the USAID-funded CORE Group Polio Project (CGPP), initiated a variety of social mobilisation (SM) and behaviour change communication (BCC) activities in Uttar Pradesh, India. This paper describes the contribution of a Management Information System (MIS) towards implementing SM and BCC activities for polio eradication.

Methods: In 2012, CGPP India engaged an independent expert to assess the quality of project processes, including BCC and the Management Information System (MIS). He performed a desk review of data collection protocols, reports and related publications; and, conducted in-depth interviews with project functionaries, community members and other stakeholders.

Results: SM and BCC activities reliant on epidemiological and social science data are crucial for the polio eradication programme for several reasons (e.g. identification of every eligible child). A unique aspect of CGPP strategies is the effective utilisation of MIS in the implementation of BCC strategies.

CGPP India MIS contributes to SM and BCC strategies by generating real time information on the following four key items: all potential beneficiaries for vaccination; behaviour of each family; location of resistant families; and, the underlying cause of resistance. Having identified resistant families, CGPP India functionaries use the MIS information to identify individuals in the community who could influence each resistant parent. This influencer then visits the family repeatedly. Where the MIS based influencers' action was used, there was a measurable increase in polio vaccination coverage, reduction in resistant cases, and increase in routine immunisation coverage.

Conclusions: The CGPP MIS increases the effectiveness of BCC and SM interventions in service of polio eradication and it can be adapted for other health services such as routine immunization where problem detection and follow-up are necessary.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
List key contributions of a management information system for social and behaviour change communication for a large-scale public health programme like polio eradication.

Keywords: Public Health Education and Health Promotion, Evidence Based Practice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am associated with CORE Group Polio Project (CGPP), India as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and responsible for developing and managing information systems for the past two years. CGPP India is a multi-agency social mobilization project for polio eradication.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.