About

Need

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One accurate measurement is infinitely superior to a thousand intelligent opinions….

Murphy’s Law

Believing in “Research with the people”, research has been an integral part of every programme of SEARCH beginning with identification of a problem to the development of the programme with continuous monitoring and periodic evaluation for course correction and to determine effectiveness of the programme undertaken.

Action

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System was established in 1989, to capture required data for the research in the area of action of SEARCH comprising community-based and hospital-based data.

134 villages
4 blocks
covering a population of nearly 110,000

The work includes

  • Developing questionnaires for collection of data, piloting them and finalising them
  • Training personnel for collection of data
  • Cross checking the data so collected
  • Data entry, data cleaning
  • Analysing the data
  • Archiving the data

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The data quality is maintained by elaborate monitoring of the data management activities at each stage at two levels (Supervisor level when they collect data from the field with various checklist and other at coding and entry level).
For example, the vital data (quantitative data concerning population, such as the number of births, the number of deaths etc.) for 134 villages in the research area of SEARCH has an accuracy of 99.9% and is one of the very very few community-based data of its kind in the world beginning 1988 to date. The unearthing of hidden child mortality in the state of Maharashtra through a child death study in the state of Maharashtra was instrumental in shaping the child health policy in Maharashtra. The evidence created by way of meticulous data collection and analysis in the Home Based Newborn Care programme and its replication in the state of Maharashtra under the ANKUR project was instrumental in successfully influencing the policy nationally and internationally.

The relevant parts of M&E system of SEARCH have been transferred to other NGOs and national level trainers for implementing HBNC in India and also organisations in other countries such as BRAC in Bangladesh.
At local level SEARCH has well-trained 48 tribal and 39 non-tribal Village Health Workers, and their supervisors.

Presently our endeavours

  • Creating a paperless system of data collection, storage and management
  • Application of Demographic Surveillance System
  • Analysis and evaluation of Non-communicable Diseases