MEASURE: Monitoring and Evaluation to ASess and Use REsults (MEASURE)

Through a Participating Agency Services Agreement (PASA) between the Centers for Disease Control/Division of Reproductive Health (CDC/DRH) and USAID/Washington under the MEASURE Project* (Phase II), MEASURE CDC contributes to the scientific foundation upon which USAID, other donors, and host country institutions can make evidence-based decisions to improve reproductive health programs.

The MEASURE Program, which began its second phase in 2003, is designed to provide and promote the use of accurate and timely information on population, health, and nutrition in developing countries in support of the Strategic Objectives of USAID’s Bureau for Global Health.  Together, the five MEASURE partner organizations (MEASURE CDC, MEASURE Communications, MEASURE DHS, MEASURE Evaluation, and MEASURE U.S. Census Bureau-SCILS) provide a full range of services designed to improve the collection, understanding, and use of quality data. Key MEASURE goals are to

• Identify and work with potential data users to build demand and define essential data
• Determine the most appropriate data collection approaches
• Develop innovative and cost-effective data collection approaches
• Translate data into information for program planning and policymaking
• Disseminate information and improve its use in influencing policy or program planning
• Facilitate data use by ensuring inclusion of data users in the planning stages of data collection, analysis, and dissemination
• Build the capacity of data users and producers in all of the above areas
• Design and implement all products and activities within a gender perspective.

Agreement with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) MEASURE CDC project is a 5–year Participating Agency Service Agreement with USAID to provide technical assistance in five areas:

• Reproductive health surveys
• Reproductive health epidemiology
• Contraceptive security logistics
• Refugee reproductive health
• Unintended and Teen Pregnancy

Technical assistance in these five areas is provided to governmental and non-governmental family planning and health organizations in developing countries through an agreement with the USAID Mission in that country or region. This agreement between USAID and CDC continues through September 2008.

How to Obtain Assistance

In developing countries, government agencies such as ministries of health, national statistics institutes, and universities, as well as non-governmental family planning and reproductive health organizations are potentially eligible for MEASURE CDC technical assistance. To request assistance, contact the Health, Population and Nutrition Officer at The United States Agency for International Development Mission in your country to determine whether the mission is willing to support the activity.

Conducting a survey with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  Division of Reproductive Health

Technical assistance provided by MEASURE CDC on surveys includes assistance in sample design, questionnaire content and design, interviewer training, fieldwork logistics, data entry and editing, data analysis, report production dissemination workshops, and data use training workshops. MEASURE CDC places a high priority on transferring these survey skills to the organizations to which it provides technical assistance. The amount of technical assistance that the MEASURE CDC provides to a particular survey depends on the level of experience of the local implementing organization.

The in-country agency that implements the survey provides the personnel, equipment, and supplies to work with MEASURE CDC staff to design the survey and sampling methodology; translate the pretest (draft) and final questionnaires into other languages, if necessary; print the questionnaires; identify and train interviewers and field supervisors to carry out the data collection; plan, conduct, and monitor the fieldwork; enter survey data onto personal computers (using data entry/editing software developed by MEASURE CDC programmers) within three weeks of data collection; edit data; and work with MEASURE CDC to prepare a preliminary data set and to perform any remaining data editing to prepare final data files for analysis. Analysis of data will be carried out jointly by the implementing agency and MEASURE CDC according to an analysis plan to be developed during the planning of the survey.

Data dissemination, translation and utilization (DTU) are an integral part of MEASURE CDC’s technical assistance for reproductive health surveys. MEASURE CDC staff, in collaboration with key stakeholders, develop strategies for DTU as part of the overall survey process. A DTU strategy aims to:

• increase local use of data for evidenced-based program planning and policy formulation;
• increase local ownership and skills of government and non-government organizations;
• increase local organization’s ability to understand, consider and apply survey data within their own programs; and
• integrate findings into on-going USAID-funded Cooperating Agency and local initiatives.

A sample of DTU activities and technical assistance includes print materials (survey reports, fact sheets, summary briefs); electronic materials (questionnaires, reports, presentations); dissemination seminars (national and subnational or topic-specific); training and capacity-building workshops (manipulating RHS data sets, applying a gender framework, analyzing data for program design and evaluation).

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Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. The CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.

Page last reviewed: 8/20/08
Page last modified: 3/26/07
Content source: Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion