Population & Health Materials Working Group May 15, 2002 Meeting

New Materials and Works in Progress | Report on USAID Meeting | New USAID Information Standards | FAMPLAN Glossary | Converting to a Dynamic Website—Dara Carr of PRB | RHGateway Update | Future Meetings/Events

1. Sharing of New Materials & Works in Progress

  • PRB
    – Distributed one-page list of their new publications
    – Contraceptive brief and wall chart is a particularly important one
  • EngenderHealth
  • Intrah
    French and Spanish guide on transfer of learning
    New distance learning publications ready
    New guides for various activities in Bangladesh, Yemen, and Dominican Republic
  • Population Council Frontiers Project
  • JHU/Population Reports
    Youth and AIDS is most recent issue
    Improving logistics for health coming out soon
    Distributed list of future topics
  • Partners for Health Reform Plus
    Have a compendium with abstracts of all publications
    Website is being redesigned
  • MSH
    Have electronic interactive database version of Drug Price Indicator Guide
    Have interactive video/audio streaming of training vignettes related to the Providers Guide to Quality and Culture
  • Ipas
  • FHI/DC Office
    Have a new publication on HIV/AIDS prevention and care in the workplace
  • FHI/North Carolina
    Produce 150 new publications a year
    New publication on using qualitative methods for RH research
    Will help promote publications from any group to their list (over 70,000 subscribers)
    Website is in five languages and gets a million hits per month
    Will be putting site on CD and sending to 1000 developing country libraries
  • JSI/DELIVER
    New publications brochure coming out soon
    A new study on the cost of logistics improvements
    Two new logistics assessment tools forthcoming
  • PATH
    Passed out list of forthcoming items
    Have new games for RH programs
    Have several new FGM items
  • Quality Assurance Project
    Produce training course materials and Quality Assurance Briefs
  • Policy Project
    Have new brief on contraceptive security
    Redesigning their website
    Have HIV policy books for individual countries

II. Report on USAID Meeting

Publication Duplication:
PHMWG was able to demonstrate that there really is no duplication of publications on Norplant and on adolescent health. Publications tend to focus on specific topics and countries. There is also almost no overlap of training materials and manuals.

Evaluation Methods:

PHMWG organizations use many of the same methods to evaluate their publication and dissemination efforts. What varies is how often and deeply we conduct evaluations. We all tend to use reader surveys, for instance. Group suggested to USAID that USAID may want to conduct a field study on the impact all their CA publications are having in the field. Fourteen organizations responded to the group’s questions about evaluation. All agreed it is most difficult to track change resulting from publications.

Cost-Sharing for Publications:

Have lots of examples of collaboration and leveraging of resources. Donors like to pay for the translation of publications into new languages. Collaborations include jointly authoring publications, USAID working group publications, adaptation of materials for different audiences. We may want to look at the duplication issues with other major donors, not just USAID.

Maria Busquets:

Maria said that evidence-based data on publications is good. She suggests that PHMWG draft a scope of work for the AID field study of publication impact. She is also interested in how USAID can keep track of materials generated by bilateral projects as well.

Sarah Harbison from USAID:

The PHMWG presentation was very effective. She thinks there is still a perception that distribution of materials is too high and not targeted carefully enough. Much of this perception comes from USAID staff who find boxes of publications around the office. She suggests that we never send materials in bulk to USAID in DC or abroad, especially materials in other languages. However, we should remember that we need to help educate USAID and therefore do need to put key publications in front of them.

Solutions for distribution problem:
1. Talk to your CTO about what he or she wants
2. Keep your mailing lists of USAID staff separate from general mailing lists and keep them up to date
3. Utilize DEC as much as possible
4. Send pubs out electronically as PDFs
5. Have your CTO send out a message to other USAID staff asking what they want
6. Make pubs available on your websites
7. Don’t send foreign language pubs to AID people in US
8. Centralize the dissemination process in your organization
9. Plan for USAID’s State of the Art meeting and prioritize which pubs to present

Lori Ashford (PRB) suggested that the cost for any materials wasted are very samll compared to overall print run. Also, the problem may really be one of perceptions rather than any significant waste.

Heather (JSI) will send out an electronic copy of the contact list for PHN officers overseas that she got from Pal-Tech.

Steven pointed out that different audiences require different packaging and that should be taken into account when looking at overlap.

Action Item
Peggy suggested that we could keep a group list of publications in a database. We could include title, languages, audiences, press run, countries, distribution plan. Issues to discuss include categories for publications, whether or not to include older publications, only USAID publications.

Laura Raney (Population Council) volunteered to start the database list for the group. We should send her our list of publications with key information before the next meeting.

To get started here are two resources:
I. A list of topics currently used by some CAs. Please contribute the terms that your organization uses and we will try to consolidate terms into a list that everyone can work with. Send any terms that are not already listed here to Peggy D’Adamo at mdadamo@jhuccp.org

  • Access [to Care] (F, PR)
  • Accreditation (PHR)
  • Adolescent Health (MMC, PR)
  • Applied Research Methodology (PHR)
  • Child Survival (PHR)
  • Communication (PR)
  • Community-Based Distribution (F)
  • Community Financing (PHR)
  • Contraceptive Methods (MMC, PR)
  • Contraceptive Options (F)
  • Contraceptive Security (PRB)
  • Cost Analysis (PHR)
  • Cost Effectivenss (PHR)
  • Cost Recovery (PHR)
  • Decentralization (PHR)
  • Economic Evaluation (F)
  • Efficiency of Health Care Delivery (PHR)
  • Equity (PHR)
  • Eradication of FGC (F)
  • Essential Health Care Services (PHR)
  • Evaluation (PHR)
  • Family Planning (MMC, PRB)
  • Female Genital Cutting (MMC, PR)
  • Financing (PR, PHR)
  • Health Commodity Logistics (PR)
  • Health Personnel (PHR)
  • HIV/AIDS (MMC, PR)
  • Maternal/Child Health (MMC, PRB)
  • Policy and RH (MMC, PR)
  • Population and Environment (PRB, PR)
  • Postpartum Care (F)
  • Postabortion Care (F)
  • Program/Policy Management (PR)
  • Quality of Care (F, PRB, PR)
  • Service Utilization (F)
  • STIs & HIV/AIDS (F)
  • Surveys (PR)
  • Women and Gender/Violence (MMC, PRB, PR)
  • Youth (F)

F=Frontiers, MMC=Media/Materials Clearinghouse, PHR=Partners for Health Reform, PR=Population Reports, PRB=Population Reference Bureau

II. An experimental searchable database of CA publications. Try it out. There are fields for title, producer, status (published, draft, forthcoming), country, region, language, description, pub-number. The database has about 200 publications in it from 8 organizations. We will be asking for your feedback on its usefulness in the coming months.

III. New USAID Information Standards

Maria mentioned that language about USAID information standards has been drafted and will be open for public comment. All U.S. agencies have to have standards and comply within one year. The new language will go into all contracts. Maria drafted a paragraph on IEC standards. If we have any concerns, send them to Peggy.

NOTE: If you haven’t read the draft USAID guidelines, they are available at http://www.usaid.gov/about/info_quality/iqs_draft_april29.pdf. The Federal Register notice inviting public comment on the guidelines is located at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid;=02-10699-filed.pdf

Beth mentioned that the Impact Project did a journal article on dissemination and impact. This was back in 1990. It may be time for a new article on this issue. PRB has used the lessons learned from that project for the past 10 years. PRB is doing country case studies to document impact of their pubs.

Action Item: Talk about PHMWG drafting a Evaluation Lessons Learned Paper

IV. FamPlan Glossary

FHI is ready to update the glossary. Please send new terms. Glossary is a great resource to hand to translators hired to translate your publications.

V. Converting to a Dynamic Website—Dara Carr of PRB

It took 15 months and $100,000 from the beginning of project. They took five separate PRB sites and integrated them into one database driven website. All sites very different with different terms. Had to make consistent for database (MSQL). All information has title, abstract, and date within database.

She commented that the database consultants were preoccupied with the back end instead of how the information was presented on the user end.

The old sites reflected internal priorities rather than user needs. Now they can cross-reference and connect people to information. Have an advanced search type of home page. They can keep it fresh and updated much more easily.

The admin interface allows staff to enter content with no handcoding. They just check certain boxes and tags and then publish. It can actually be too easy to add and delete info, so there have to be controls over who can get in and administer the site.

Usage has gone up significantly since they made the changes.

Information is in the database in reverse chronological order and also by type of information.

Tested the site by asking colleagues all over the world to try it out. People weren’t seeing the navigational bar at the top, only saw the one on the left. Get people unfamiliar with USAID to look at headers and terms to see if they communicate clearly.

Dara invites people to contact her for more information at dcarr@prb.org. Judith Griffin at MSH also says she can talk to people about their E-Bookstore: griffin@msh.org

VI. RHGateway Update

Peggy wants everyone to commit to distributing a specific number of Gateway postcards. Let her know how many you want. Please also keep track of where you send them.

HomePage: any more ideas for how RHGateway can redirect people to searches on other sites? Looking for XYZ, then try a search on…..

It seems that a lot of people are looking for medical information on the site. Can now duplicated searches on other sites easily.

Development Gateway (UNFPA/World Bank) will link to RHGateway. It’s a huge site. Anyone can submit electronic resources.

Are getting 5,000 visits to RHG per month.

Does anyone have any other ideas for how to publicize RHG? If so, send them to Peggy.

Do people want to participate in an order form/shopping cart function for pubs on RHG? That way any user to RHG could order pubs from any member sites. Peggy will send out more information about this.

Laura Raney of Population Council used to work at the World Bank and she mentioned that the Adapting Change listserv has 4500 people on it from all around the world and they are always looking for content to send out.

VII. Future Meetings/Events

  • When should we do the next Internet conference? About a year from now. Will need help with agenda items, speakers, topics. Steve from PopReports will chair the committee.
  • We all agreed to hold 3 PHMWG meetings a year.
  • Next meeting: Wednesday, September 11th from 11-4:00 at PATH at 1800 K Street. One-half of the next meeting should focus on evaluation.
  • A sub-committee will develop a scope of work for USAID’s publications impact evaluation in the field. That meeting is on June 11th from 1-3 PM at PRB. Contact Lori Ashford if you are interested in attending.