Michael Edelstein’s Updates
question to colleagues and admins
for those of you with experience in running these surveys- what is a realistic number of cluster to visit as part of a survey, considering the budget normally allocated to these surveys? I realise it depends on individual countries, but just to have a rough idea... thanks!
Hi Michael, in Sri Lanka, we haven't had the chance to use this new method yet. We used old 30x7 cluster survey up to 2016 in a selected district(s) (we have 26 health districts) since we have well-monitored NIP from sub district level. With that background, I think the number of clusters will depend on the maturity of the National Immunization Program, Funds allocated for the activity, how much quality surveyors (we use student nurses) and supervisors (regional epidemiologists) that we can assemble and length of their time period we can get. Since we are monitoring the sub district levels (Medical Officer of Health Areas-342 in number) also very strictly I would rather go for district level precise estimate with a classification for sub district levels if survey conduct in district level. Otherwise, with precise national coverage estimate with classification in districts if the whole island to be covered. Hope you had some glimpse of idea in our situation.