Data to Action: A Mixed-Methods Study of Data Use Teams, Improved Availability of Contraceptives in Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, and Myanmar

Information Mobilized for Performance Analysis and Continuous Transformation (IMPACT) Teams routinely bring together data, people, processes, and technology, under the leadership of governments, to institute a change in culture that leads to sustained improvements in supply chain processes and outcomes. This mixed methods study examined whether IMPACT Teams were effective in improving reproductive health supply chain outcomes in Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, and Myanmar and identified enablers and barriers to IMPACT Team success and sustainability in Indonesia and Kenya. The study design employed a pre-post intervention comparison panel design with a nonrandomized matched comparison group to examine the IMPACT Teams' effect on 2 supply chain outcomes: stocked according to plan and stock-outs. Additional key informant interviews conducted in Kenya and Indonesia explored enablers and barriers to IMPACT Team success and sustainability. For nearly all products across the 4 countries, an increase in products being stocked according to plan and a reduction in stock-outs can be attributed to the IMPACT Team intervention, demonstrating that IMPACT teams are an effective approach for improving contraceptive supply chain inventory management and availability. However, our findings do not demonstrate a clear causal pathway as theorized in our theory of change, namely that government leadership leads to the installation of a data use culture, which in turn leads to improved product availability. In both Indonesia and Kenya, though product availability improved, there was a lack of leadership and culture change. This suggests that improved product availability does not depend on establishing a data use culture or government leadership, but rather, that a data use culture—rather than product availability—is the outcome of interest for sustained change, and that understanding motivations and incentives for leadership participation may be more important for scaling, institutionalizing, and sustaining gains in supply chain outcomes.