USAID ASSIST Project: Research and Evaluation Report FY13

The project is managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC) under the terms of Cooperative Agreement Number AID-OAA-A-12-00101. The project is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and focuses on improving the quality of care in areas such as maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), tuberculosis (TB), and HIV/AIDS. The ASSIST Project's research and evaluation unit provides technical support and guidance on country-led research and syntheses of learning across country projects on improvement topics such as validity of improvement-related data, sustainability and institutionalization, spread, and cost-effectiveness. In FY13, the ASSIST R&E unit began several country-led research programs, including studies on pediatric TB diagnostic testing in Swaziland, the effectiveness and efficiency of using brief physician interventions to decrease alcohol and tobacco use in pregnancy in the Ukraine, and studies on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services and retention in care in Tanzania. The project's research activities are focused on several key areas, including the validation of more than 25% of improvement indicators, the evaluation of improvement interventions using comparisons with control groups for at least 10% of improvement indicators, economic analysis of improvement approaches and strategies, and the conduct of rigorous research into mechanisms for improving the quality of care across clinical areas. The project also aims to evaluate the design of improvement activities for lower- and middle-income countries and to advance global knowledge on scale-up of improvement interventions. The ASSIST Project's research and evaluation activities are designed to provide technical support and guidance to country programs and to disseminate knowledge from these studies to encourage wider adoption of improvement methods used in projects. The project's research findings are intended to inform policy and program decisions and to contribute to the development of evidence-based practices in the field of global health. In FY13, the ASSIST R&E unit provided technical assistance for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) services improvement measurement plans and planning for their validation in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. The unit also provided assistance with planning on how to validate 25% of key country-reported indicators across ASSIST-supported countries. The project's research activities are ongoing, and the ASSIST R&E unit continues to provide technical support and guidance to country programs on improvement topics.