MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF THE LAMPANG HEALTH DEVELOPMENT

Proj provides maternal/child health, family planning, nutrition & other basic health services to pilot area population in rural northern Thailand with potential replication nationwide. Report recounts proj background, and describes proj"s institutional framework in general & organization of Division of Research & Eval in detail. Div personnel include chief, statistician/epidemiologist, medical anthropologist, 2 asst statisticians, field manager, 2 field supervisors, 12 data collectors & 8 coders. Thai Natl Inst of Dvlp Admin providing data processing, sociology, & statistician consultants, computer programmer, and heads of admin analysis and task & cost analyses components. US & Thai universities providing additional short-term consulting assistance. Extensive Eval Plan employs a pre-test, post-test control design with experimental & control areas. Major objs of eval are: (1) assessment of health personnel & deliv system performance; (2) measurement of change in consumer accessibility to, and acceptance of services; (3) measurement of impact of services on population"s health, tracking baseline status indicators over time & comparing targets with achievements; & (4) assessing feasibility of replicating system nationwide. Implementation of monitoring/eval system employs following info components: nutrition surveillance, clinical & health records abstract; admin, task & cost analyses; mgmt info system; nutrition & community health surveys; & vital events & special proj studies. Data is collected, analyzed & coded. Both technical & non-technical problems encountered: time & tech constraints of processing unit; limited capabilities of personnel involved; quality control inconsistencies; & insufficient resource allocation compared to other proj components. Appendices include proj logframe; proj organ chart; Research & Eval Div Organ/Personnel Structure; Descriptions of Info Components; sample survey questionnaires; Schedule of Eval Data Collection.