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Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study

BACKGROUND: Humanitarian agencies working in refugee camp settings require rapid assessment methods to measure the needs of the populations they serve. Due to the high level of dependency of refugees, agencies need to carry out these assessments. Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) is a method com...

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Autores principales: Harding, Elizabeth, Beckworth, Colin, Fesselet, Jean-Francois, Lenglet, Annick, Lako, Richard, Valadez, Joseph J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549393/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28789627
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4656-2
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author Harding, Elizabeth
Beckworth, Colin
Fesselet, Jean-Francois
Lenglet, Annick
Lako, Richard
Valadez, Joseph J.
author_facet Harding, Elizabeth
Beckworth, Colin
Fesselet, Jean-Francois
Lenglet, Annick
Lako, Richard
Valadez, Joseph J.
author_sort Harding, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Humanitarian agencies working in refugee camp settings require rapid assessment methods to measure the needs of the populations they serve. Due to the high level of dependency of refugees, agencies need to carry out these assessments. Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) is a method commonly used in development settings to assess populations living in a project catchment area to identify their greatest needs. LQAS could be well suited to serve the needs of refugee populations, but it has rarely been used in humanitarian settings. We adapted and implemented an LQAS survey design in Batil refugee camp, South Sudan in May 2013 to measure the added value of using it for sub-camp level assessment. METHODS: Using pre-existing divisions within the camp, we divided the Batil catchment area into six contiguous segments, called ‘supervision areas’ (SA). Six teams of two data collectors randomly selected 19 respondents in each SA, who they interviewed to collect information on water, sanitation, hygiene, and diarrhoea prevalence. These findings were aggregated into a stratified random sample of 114 respondents, and the results were analysed to produce a coverage estimate with 95% confidence interval for the camp and to prioritize SAs within the camp. RESULTS: The survey provided coverage estimates on WASH indicators as well as evidence that areas of the camp closer to the main road, to clinics and to the market were better served than areas at the periphery of the camp. This assumption did not hold for all services, however, as sanitation services were uniformly high regardless of location. While it was necessary to adapt the standard LQAS protocol used in low-resource communities, the LQAS model proved to be feasible in a refugee camp setting, and program managers found the results useful at both the catchment area and SA level. CONCLUSIONS: This study, one of the few adaptations of LQAS for a camp setting, shows that it is a feasible method for regular monitoring, with the added value of enabling camp managers to identify and advocate for the least served areas within the camp. Feedback on the results from stakeholders was overwhelmingly positive.
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spelling pubmed-55493932017-08-11 Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study Harding, Elizabeth Beckworth, Colin Fesselet, Jean-Francois Lenglet, Annick Lako, Richard Valadez, Joseph J. BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Humanitarian agencies working in refugee camp settings require rapid assessment methods to measure the needs of the populations they serve. Due to the high level of dependency of refugees, agencies need to carry out these assessments. Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) is a method commonly used in development settings to assess populations living in a project catchment area to identify their greatest needs. LQAS could be well suited to serve the needs of refugee populations, but it has rarely been used in humanitarian settings. We adapted and implemented an LQAS survey design in Batil refugee camp, South Sudan in May 2013 to measure the added value of using it for sub-camp level assessment. METHODS: Using pre-existing divisions within the camp, we divided the Batil catchment area into six contiguous segments, called ‘supervision areas’ (SA). Six teams of two data collectors randomly selected 19 respondents in each SA, who they interviewed to collect information on water, sanitation, hygiene, and diarrhoea prevalence. These findings were aggregated into a stratified random sample of 114 respondents, and the results were analysed to produce a coverage estimate with 95% confidence interval for the camp and to prioritize SAs within the camp. RESULTS: The survey provided coverage estimates on WASH indicators as well as evidence that areas of the camp closer to the main road, to clinics and to the market were better served than areas at the periphery of the camp. This assumption did not hold for all services, however, as sanitation services were uniformly high regardless of location. While it was necessary to adapt the standard LQAS protocol used in low-resource communities, the LQAS model proved to be feasible in a refugee camp setting, and program managers found the results useful at both the catchment area and SA level. CONCLUSIONS: This study, one of the few adaptations of LQAS for a camp setting, shows that it is a feasible method for regular monitoring, with the added value of enabling camp managers to identify and advocate for the least served areas within the camp. Feedback on the results from stakeholders was overwhelmingly positive. BioMed Central 2017-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5549393/ /pubmed/28789627 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4656-2 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Harding, Elizabeth
Beckworth, Colin
Fesselet, Jean-Francois
Lenglet, Annick
Lako, Richard
Valadez, Joseph J.
Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study
title Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study
title_full Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study
title_fullStr Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study
title_full_unstemmed Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study
title_short Using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in South Sudan: a feasibility study
title_sort using lot quality assurance sampling to assess access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in a refugee camp setting in south sudan: a feasibility study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549393/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28789627
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4656-2
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