Resources: humanitarian

Alternative Sampling Designs for Emergency Settings

FANTA-2 Project, 2009, Alternative Sampling Designs for Emergency Settings: A Guide for Survey Planning, Data Collection and Analysis. Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project II (FANTA-2), Academy for Educational Development, Washington DC

This guide provides program managers, survey leaders and monitoring and evaluation specialists with instructions on how to carry out rapid yet statistically reliable population-based surveys on the prevalence of malnutrition in difficult settings. The first step in this sense is to assess the severity and magnitude of the situation, by assessing the prevalence of acute malnutrition among children younger than five. Then, information on indicators related to morbidity, coverage of vaccination services, household food security and water and sanitation should be collected, to obtain data for problem analysis and response planning.

Information on the severity of the situation and on the reasons for malnutrition are needed before any other intervention can take place, and this manual presents three alternatives to the survey method generally used in emergencies, which is a 2-stage 30 by 30 cluster survey providing reliable population-level estimates, but time and resource intensive. The manual includes instructions for planning, implementing and analysing data collected through three alternative design: the 33 clusters by 6 observations in each, the 67 clusters by 3 observations in each and a sequential design with up to 67 clusters and 3 observations in each.

The first 3 sections of the manual present an overview of the characteristics of the three alternatives, and instructions to carry out the questionnaire development, sampling and data analysis. Section 4 guides the reader to identify which sampling design may be most appropriate to use considering the objective of the survey and the characteristics of the area to be assessed.

© 2010 People and Development.