Communication Indicators for District Level Activities to Reduce Dropout

Editor's Note:

In June 2003, UNICEF and GAVI (The Global Alliance for Vaccines & Immunization) held regional workshops in Istanbul, Johannesburg, and Bangkok to address key issues in communication for immunisation. Participants included communication and immunisation specialists, Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) managers, and health educators from governments and GAVI partners working in more than 40 countries. The workshops addressed such issues as communication for immunisation safety, advocacy for financial sustainability, social mobilisation, communication planning, communication to improve district-level coverage, facing the media, communication strategies in response to Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFIs) and to build public trust in immunisation, and immunisation of hard-to-reach groups, among others. A free CD-ROM draws together key presentations, discussions, tools, topics, and recommendations; please see ordering information below.

Summary provided by the presenter

Many EPI programmes use drop out reduction as a primary strategy to improve coverage at the district level. To support this strategy, several communication indicators were introduced to measure:

• Improvement in the IPC skills of health workers
• Community involvement in tracking drop-outs
• Community linkages with outreach services
• Feedback on communication support to the district EPI programme.

In this practical session, participants developed and tested monitoring tools and used sample data to process each of these indicators.

1. Improve the Interpersonal Communication (IPC) skills of health workers

Activity: Provide training for health workers in IPC including delivery of key EPI messages during a vaccination session. A checklist of 5 messages and behaviours was developed by participants and used to monitor IPC skills of health workers.

Output Indicator:

# HWs with IPC "score" 3.5 out of 5 according to the checklist

# HWs observed

Outcome Indicator:

# mothers who know when to return

Total # mothers interviewed

2. Strengthen Community Involvement in Tracking Drop outs

Activity: The health facility provides the community focal point with a list of children who are late for vaccination; The community focal point visits the households of children on the list.

Output indicator

# children on list of drop-outs whose households are contacted

# children on list

Outcome indicator

# children contacted who are vaccinated

# children contacted

3. Strengthen community linkages with outreach service

Activity: The community and outreach team meet to agree on outreach schedule and that the bush taxi driver will act as go-between to inform community of the team's actual arrival.

Output Indicators

# times community informed of outreach team coming

# times outreach team came

# times community informed of outreach NOT coming

# times outreach did Not come

4. Improve feedback on communication support to district EPI programme

Activity: Communication issues discussed at district EPI monthly management meetings. Several indicators are possible

Output Indicators:

# of meetings with communication on agenda

# meetings held

or

# of meetings with community representative present

# of meetings held

Click here for an overview of the June 2003 Communication for Immunization Workshops in Istanbul, Johannesburg, and Bangkok.

For more information, or to request a free copy of the CD-ROM on which this presentation is featured, contact:

Erica Kochi

ekochi@unicef.org

OR

Gina Darcin

gdarcinstlouis@unicef.org

UNICEF

UNICEF's Immunization website