Indicators vs. QuestionsEvents vs. Rates

Rate is events in a defined group in a limited time period

Rare events require special methods;How you collect often trumps what you collect (mortality)

Objective of Collecting Information

•Summarize and represent the responses of people: common views and variations•Drivers and groupings of those responses

One Method Cannot get a Fair and Full Representation of a Community’s

Voice• Opinion vs Behavior• Multiple Ways to Ask• What matters is

What changes over timeWhat differences exist between subgroups

• What stays the same when everything else changes

• What differences are bigger than the imprecision we have in measuring them

How to seek information

• Systematic survey at point of useWater hole chat, commercial outlet sales

record• Meeting with community leaders• ‘Snowball’ from one person to the next• Remote sensing (new technologies)– Ushidi vs telecom

To Represent The Whole

• Random – Simplest, but often not the Best• If not have a list of all members of community

imitate it with Cluster in the last (geographic) stage

• If population not residential , not equal chance of being included (if 50% of people on the move, random is a joke)

• Then ‘random’ often false representivity

Systematic or Purposive Sample

• Seek most affected areas• Find most affected and less affected groups

(areas)• Summarize before and after, high and low

impact groups• Represent the range of needs, not the average

of the community• Identify strata of key subgroups

Strongest Information From Triangulation

• Consistency of information across areas and levels of information collection

• Household and community interviews• Opinions and quantitative representations

• Sensitivity• Representivity• Valid• Reliable (repeatable)