17 Aug ME&A-Led Team Assists US Government missions With Analysis of COVID-19 Data From 50 Countries
As part of a broader effort to understand the contributions of US Government missions and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding toward combating COVID-19 and other global health challenges, the Global Health Evaluation and Learning Support Activity (GH EvaLS) assisted US Government missions with entering US Government missions COVID-19 response data from 50 countries into a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) monitoring tool. During the month of July 2021, the ME&A-led team provided data entry, processing, and quality checking of response data on 10 pillars of pandemic response (e.g. infection prevention and control, laboratories, vaccines, risk communication and community engagement, surveillance, etc.). For each of the 50 countries, this involved 15 quantitative and qualitative questions per each of the 10 pillars’ technical areas as well as two additional open-ended questions. These data will assess how country health systems to fight COVID-19 are improving in the context of US Government missions CDC’s technical assistance since the last data call in November 2020. These data will also assess where gaps remain. The HHS monitoring tool the GH EvaLS team used is the Data Collation and Integration for Public Health Event Response (DCIPHER) Program. DCIPHER is designed to assist public health experts in disease surveillance and outbreak management for real-time events, such as COVID-19. DCIPHER facilitates the collection and integration of various sources of epidemiological, surveillance, and laboratory data and provides tools for multiple organizations, including CDC and US Government missions, to investigate and take action. GH EvaLS provides evaluation, assessment, and learning support for health-related projects and activities at US Government mission in Washington and US Government missions. Projects within the US Government missions Bureau for Global Health’s portfolio support the U.S. Government’s goals to improve global health through preventing child and maternal deaths; controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and combating infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. US Government missions awarded ME&A the GH EvaLS contract in May 2020.