FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2005
Contact: Julie O'Brien
Phone: 617-250-9500
Email: jobrien@msh.org

Kabul, Afghanistan: In a poster session held December 14 in Philadelphia at the American Public Health Association's 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition, Dr. Omid Ameli, Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor for the USAID-funded Rural Expansion of Afghanistan's Community-based Healthcare Program (REACH), explained the introduction and use of Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) to measure progress made by REACH NGO grant recipients in delivering a basic package of health care in 110 districts of 14 Afghan provinces.

In post-conflict Afghanistan, where rugged terrain, a decentralized health delivery mechanism and staff shortfalls present challenges to the timely gathering of valid data on progress in public health, LQAS focuses on 10 key indicators of mother and child health. Provided training and technical assistance by REACH, NGOs previously unfamiliar with LQAS methodology were able to determine baseline status of the key health indicators, analyze survey results and set realistic targets without needing to divert scarce human resources away from health service delivery. The survey methodology also allowed the NGO grantees to do a midterm evaluation of their progress one year later with a minimal data collection effort. This evaluation exercise will be completed by a final household survey at the end of the project in 2006.

The success of LQAS has prompted the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to introduce it as a measurement tool at the provincial level nationwide, where it will complement data being channeled to the central Ministry by the National Health Management Information System, also developed with REACH assistance.

Dr. Ameli co-authored the presentation with Dr. Paul Ickx, REACH Management Systems Information Advisor, and Sallie Craig Huber, REACH Program Manager for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. The four-day Annual Meeting of the APHA, held in Philadelphia, December 10-14, is focused on "Evidence-Based Policy and Practice," with special sessions devoted to disaster management.

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