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The º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 survey collects annual data at the national level to allow for the estimation of key indicators to monitor progress in family planning. The resident enumerator (RE) model enables replication of the surveys twice a year for the first two years, and annually each year after that, to track progress of family planning indicators.

The first three rounds of data collection occurred exclusively in Kinshasa. For the third round of data collection (º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2015/Kinshasa-R3), the project sampled 58 enumeration areas (EAs) to achieve a representative urban sample in Kinshasa. The EAs were selected systematically using probability proportional to size within urban/rural strata.

Before data collection, all households, private service delivery points (SDPs) and key landmarks in each EA were listed and mapped by trained resident enumerators (REs) to create a sampling frame for the second stage of sampling for households and private SDPs. The mapping and listing process took place the first week of data collection in each EA with the help of cartographers and supervisors. Once households had been listed, field supervisors systematically selected 30 households per EA using a random number-generating mobile-phone application. All members of the selected households were enumerated by the interviewers when completing household questionnaires, and from this household roster, all eligible women (aged 15-49) were approached and asked to provide informed consent (and assent if aged 15-17 years) to participate in the study.

Up to three private SDPs located within each EA were selected from the list of SDPs available in the EA. In addition, three public SDPs, primary health centers, secondary medical centers with or without a surgery units and tertiary regional or national/teaching hospitals serving the selected EA populations were selected.

Weights were adjusted for non-response, and applied to all estimations at the household and individual level in the presented tables.

º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 uses standardized questionnaires for households, females and SDPs to gather data about households and individual females that are comparable across program countries and consistent with existing national surveys. Prior to launching the survey in each country, local experts review and modify these questionnaires to ensure all questions are appropriate to each setting.

Three questionnaires were used to collect data from the º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2015/Kinshasa survey: the household questionnaire, the female questionnaire and the service delivery point (SDP) questionnaire. These questionnaires are based on model surveys designed by º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health in Baltimore, University of Kinshasa's School of Public Health, in collaboration with Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and fieldwork materials of the DRC Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

All º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 questionnaires are administered using Open Data Kit (ODK) software installed on mobile phones (smartphones) using the Android operating system. In addition to French, key words from the º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2015/Kinshasa questions appeared on the phones in the main local languages.

REs in each EA administered the household and female questionnaires in the selected households and the private SDP questionnaires. Field supervisors administered questionnaires at public SDPs.

The household questionnaire gathers basic information about the household to construct a wealth quintile index, such as ownership of livestock and durable goods, characteristics of the dwelling unit, including wall, floor and roof materials, water sources, and sanitation facilities. Using º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020’s innovative mobile technology, the household questionnaire is linked with the female questionnaire, enabling analysis of female data by her household’s socioeconomic status.

The first section of the household questionnaire, the household roster, lists basic demographic information about all usual members of the household and visitors who stayed with the household the night before the interview. This roster is used to identify eligible respondents for the female questionnaire.

In addition to the household members roster, the household questionnaire also gathers data that are used to measure key water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) indicators, including regular sources and uses of water, sanitation facilities used and prevalence of open defecation.

The female questionnaire is used to collect information from all women ages 15 to 49 who were listed on the household roster at selected households. It gathers specific information on education; fertility and fertility preferences; family planning access, choice and use; quality of family planning services; exposure to family planning messaging in the media; and the time to collect water by women.

In each selected EA, field supervisors randomly select up to three private SDPs to be interviewed by the RE using the SDP questionnaire. All private SDPs were interviewed if there were less than three SDPs in an EA. Field supervisors administered the survey to the three public SDPs serving each EA.

The SDP questionnaire collects information about the provision and quality of reproductive health services and products, integration of health services, and water and sanitation within the health facility.

Training

The º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2015/Kinshasa fieldwork training started with a training of five central staff and five field supervisors in April 2015. º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 staff from the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health led the training. Field supervisors, supported by the central team and º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 team, then became the trainers for the subsequent resident enumerator (RE) training sessions that took place in April of 2015 in Kinshasa before the start of the third round of data collection. A total of 58 REs have been trained in Kinshasa.

All participants received training in research ethics, comprehensive instruction on how to map and list households in enumeration areas (EAs), and instruction on how to complete the household and female questionnaires using appropriate and ethical interview skills. In addition to º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 survey training, all participants received training on contraceptive methods by a physician specializing in reproductive health.

Throughout the trainings, REs and supervisors were evaluated based on their performance on several written and phone-based assessments, practical field exercises and class participation. As all questionnaires were completed on project smartphones, the training also familiarized participants with Open Data Kit (ODK) and smartphone use in general. All trainings included three days of practical exercises, during which participants entered a practice EA to conduct mapping and listing, and household, female and SDP interviews. All responses were captured on project smartphones, and submitted to a practice cloud server—a centralized data storage system. The RE trainings were conducted primarily in French, with discussions about translation to local languages.

Supervisors received training on procedures for supervision of field work including instruction on conducting re-interviews, carrying out random spot checks in 10% of the households surveyed by the REs.

Data Collection & Processing

Data collection was conducted between May and June 2015. Unlike traditional paper-and-pencil surveys, º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 uses ODK Collect, an open-source software application, to collect data on mobile phones. All the questionnaires were programmed using this software and installed onto project smartphones. The ODK questionnaire forms are programmed with automatic skip patterns and built-in response constraints to prevent data entry errors.

The Open Data Kit Collect application enabled REs and supervisors to collect and transfer survey data, via the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network, a central cloud server that aggregates data in real time. This instantaneous aggregation of data also allowed for real-time monitoring of data collection progress, concurrent data processing, and course corrections while º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 was still active in the field. Throughout data collection, the central staff in Kinshasa and data managers in Baltimore routinely monitored the incoming data and notified field staff of any potential errors, missing data or problems found with form submissions on the central server.

The use of mobile phones combines data collection and data entry into one step; therefore, data entry was completed when the last interview form was uploaded at the end of data collection.

Once all data were on the server, data analysts cleaned and de-identified the data, applied survey weights, and prepared the final dataset for analysis using Stata® version 14 software. A preliminary analysis in the first two months following each round of data collection allows tracking of key indicators in real time.

This table shows response rates of household and female respondents for º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2015/Kinshasa-Round 3 and the 2013-14 DRC Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Of the 1,844 households selected 1,828 (99.1%) households were occupied at the time of the fieldwork. Among the 1,828 potential respondents, 1,768 consented to the household interview (96.7% response rate).

In the selected households 2,815 eligible women aged 15 to 49 years were identified and 2,683 of them were interviewed (response rate of 95.3%).

The º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2015/Kinshasa-R3 response rates were lower than those observed in the DRC DHS 2013-14 for both households and eligible women. The relatively low response rate for º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 could be related to the smaller sample size that is more sensitive to higher response rates.

To view the sample errors for the º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 indicators described above, download the full SOI report here. For more information about º£½Ç»»ÆÞ2020 indicators, including estimate type and base population, click here.