Health

Improving resource allocation and evaluating the hard-to-measure impacts of global health efforts 

Geospatial Impact Evaluations

Evaluating hard-to-measure impacts of health interventions with next-generation methods of geospatial analysis

Case Study: Fighting malaria in the DRC

A new geospatial impact evaluation by AidData and other researchers uncovers large declines in child mortality from a national bednet campaign.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, finds that a national bednet distribution campaign in the DRC led to a 41% decline in mortality rates among children under five living in high-malaria areas. What’s more, the effect of the campaign was found to be strongest among the poorest 20% of households. The study examines whether the attributes of a specific location—important factors like the malaria ecology index, or how malaria-burdened an area is—affected how well the bednet program worked to reduce child mortality. It measures a lever that governments and aid donors can directly affect (access to a bednet program) rather than one that they can only indirectly influence, like ensuring household and individual use of bednets.

Case Study: Improving health and nutrition for food-insecure households in Malawi

AidData is evaluating how durable improvements in health behaviors were after a USAID program ended.

AidData is currently implementing a long-run impact evaluation of the Wellness and Agriculture for Life Advancement (WALA) program, which aimed to improve nutrition and food security for over 200,000 chronically food-insecure households by demonstrating sustainable agricultural practices and optimal health behaviors. By the program's end in 2014, villages experienced reductions in stunting and underweight status, and a significant improvement in household dietary diversity. But have communities carried on with these healthy behaviors after the program closed, and have the lower levels of stunting and underweight status continued? AidData's rigorous impact evaluation will employ quasi-experimental methods that compare villages in the program with other villages who did not experience the program to answer this question.