Utilizing community health worker data for program management and evaluation: Systems for data quality assessments and baseline results from Rwanda

Community health workers (CHWs) have and continue to play a pivotal role in health services delivery in many resource-constrained environments. The data routinely generated through these programs are increasingly relied upon for providing information for program management, evaluation and quality assurance. However, there are few published results on the quality of CHW-generated data, and what information exists suggests quality is low. An ongoing challenge is the lack of routine systems for CHW data quality assessments (DQAs). In this paper, we describe a system developed for CHW DQAs and results of the first formal assessment in southern Kayonza, Rwanda, May–June 2011. We discuss considerations for other programs interested in adopting such systems. While the results identified gaps in the current data quality, the assessment also identified opportunities for strengthening the data to ensure suitable levels of quality for use in management and evaluation.

► Community health workers (CHW) are key in health systems, collecting program planning or evaluation data used at all levels.
► Assessing CHW data quality by lot quality assurance sampling is a viable routine method for supervisors or program managers.
► Reliability of data was poor among our sample of health centers in Rwanda in 2011 due to several CHW and program factors.
► Appropriate interventions may address relevant factors at health units identified with poor data quality.