Overview

MEASURE DHS supports qualitative research to produce informed answers to questions that lie outside the purview of a standard survey approach to understanding issues in health, population, and nutrition. By using a qualitative approach to examine the social and cultural contexts of daily life, MEASURE DHS works to increase the validity and reliability of its surveys, to expand the information available for monitoring and evaluation, and to contribute original qualitative research in the fields of public health and anthropology. The capability to collect data through qualitative as well as quantitative methods provides a unique opportunity to learn and demonstrate how quantitative and qualitative approaches can be linked to expand our understanding of social and cultural dynamics related to health, population and nutrition around the world.

Qualitative research allows individuals to speak with their own voices, to discuss their own concerns and priorities using concepts meaningful to them. Local terms and concepts related to health, illness and population are often different from those familiar to public health experts. Studies that evaluate the experiences of clients who use a medical service, that assess the quality of a family planning service, or that measure the understanding of survey questions by respondents must discover how local concerns are formulated. Qualitative methods are well suited to do just that.

Qualitative research is funded under MEASURE DHS to meet the needs of USAID missions seeking answers to specific questions about their programs, and to respond to requests for studies from USAID Washington. Topics for qualitative research may also come from collaborating agencies or from a core research agenda relating to a substantive area to be investigated in public health or anthropology. Studies are also often designed in relation to a DHS survey to improve the way questions are asked and how answers are formulated, provide contextual information for implementing a survey, or further interpret DHS findings.

View Qualitative Research Publications

How can results of qualitative studies be used?

To make health policy

• Knowing how HIV/AIDS is understood and acted upon in a population enables planners to make informed decisions about treatment and prevention policies and programs.
• Knowing how couples use contraception or why they do not use it enables service planners to make more informed decisions about the types of family planning methods to offer in their programs.

To revise clinical standards

• Clinical standards such as those for counseling on contraceptive side effects can be adapted for a population by knowing how women and men understand the human body and how they use contraceptive methods.

To focus and improve the training of providers

• Sources of chronic miscommunication between providers and clients can be identified and addressed.

To design health education and dissemination strategies

• Identifying patterns and understandings related to what constitutes good health and ill health in a population allows for more focused health education.
• Identifying key players in decision-making or health seeking processes and channels of information flow allows for the creation of more efficient strategies for education.
• Identifying practices already present in the population can help to promote a health education strategy.