Food and Nutrition Surveillance and Response in Emergencies

1
Food and Nutrition Surveillance and Response in
Emergencies

• Session 10
• Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to
  Nutrition Situation Analysis

2
Introduction

• Analysis of elements of food chain and their
  interactions needs to be done to understand the
  whole spectrum of food and nutrition security
• Formulation of strategies and design of effective
  interventions require comprehensive assessments
  and cooperation of a variety of disciplines

3
Introduction

• Challenge is to create methodologies that are
  relevant, multi-disciplinary and comprehensive
• Rapid Assessments are the new methodologies
  responsive to this challenge.

4
What is a Rapid Assessment (RA)?

• Has origin and application in rural development
  research and nutrition research
• A systematic activity designed to draw
  inferences, conclusions, hypotheses or
  assessments including the acquisition of new
  information during a limited period of time.

5
Characteristics of RA?

• Offers the balance and interaction between
  (emic), local or indigenous perspective and the
  (etic), outside or experts perspectives from
  anthropological point of view
• Pays attention to the cultural, traditional and
  social factors the target problems as well as
  knowledge of the beneficiaries.

6
Characteristics of RA?

• Procedures are primarily direct observations,
  informal conversations, key informant interviews
  concerned with knowledge, attitudes and practice

7
How is RA Used?

• To enhance the understanding of the rural
  conditions in their natural context
• To tap knowledge of local inhabitants and
  combining the knowledge with modern scientific
  expertise BUT minimizing prior assumptions

8
Qualitative Methods

• Focus Group Discussions
• Observations
• Key Informants
• Case Histories/Studies

9
Focus Group Discussions

• What is FGD
• A structured group process used to obtain
  detailed information about a particular situation
  
• Uses
• For exploring attitudes and feelings
• To draw out precise issues that may be unknown to
  the investigator

10
Focus Group Discussions (FGD)

• Composition of FGD
• 6-9 participants brought together to discuss a
  clearly defined topic
• Composed of homogeneous people representing a
  particular segment of population (e.g. gender,
  age social group-pastoralists, internally
  displaced persons)

11
Focus Group Discussions (FGD)

• Timing
• A group session should last 1 to 1 and a half
  hours, maximum 2 hours.
• Facilitator keeps discussion n track by asking a
  series of open ended questions to stimulate
  discussions

12
Focus Group Discussions (FGD)

• Advantages
• Easy to undertake
• Results obtained in a short time
• Social interactions in the group produces freer
  and more complex responses
• The investigator can probe for clarification and
  solicit greater details

13
Focus Group Discussions (FGD)

• Disadvantages
• Groups are often difficult to assemble
• Individual responses are not independent of each
  other
• Group is hand selected therefore the results may
  not be representative of the general population

14
Observation

• Observations generates questions for further
  investigations
• Attendance at participation in activities,
  formal and informal
• Structure counting (quantitative) observation
  yields useful preliminary information on physical
  features
• Structures, sample (quantitative and qualitative)
  

15
Observation

• Transect. Offers an overview of the field site
  and structured observation on natural resource
  and human activity
• Record who walked the transect and at what time
• Helps build rapport with the locals

16
Key Informant Interviews

• Obtaining information from a community
  resident who is in a position to know the
  community as a whole, or a particular area of
  interest.
• The person can be a profession person who works
  with the population you want information about,
  or a member of the target population
• Key informants can be young or old

17
Key Informant Interviews

• Advantages
• provides in-depth information about causes of
  the problem
• Allows to clarify ideas and information on
  continual basis
• Can easily combine with quantitative information

18
Key Informant Interviews

• Disadvantages
• Informants may give you their own impression and
  biases
• May have to be combined with other methods,
  because achieving representativeness of the total
  community is difficult
• May overlook the perspectives of community
  members who are less visible
• The information may be difficult to quantify and
  organise

19
Qualitative vs. Qualitative
Qualitative Quantitative
Lower numbers of respondents Higher numbers of respondents
Open-ended questions and probing yield detailed information that highlights diversity Specific questions obtain predetermined responses to standardized questions
Data collection techniques vary e.g. FGD, Key informant, observations Relies on surveys as the main method of data collection
More suitable when resources and time are limited Relies on more extensive interviewing
Empowering and participatory Not empowering
20
Qualitative vs. Qualitative
Qualitative Quantitative
Interprets Describes
Sampling depends on what needs to be learned-Purposive sampling Sampling focuses on probability and representativeness
Explores causality Suggests causality
21
Qualitative Methods

• Strengths
• Provides vital information on attitudes and
  practice
• Findings from qualitative research can be used to
  base qualitative research
• Can easily combine with quantitative information

22
Qualitative Methods

• Weaknesses
• Small samples invalidates generalization of
  results
• Non scientific-

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Quantitative Methods

• Strengths
• Used to gather large amount of data
• Features a high level of reliability
• Findings can be tested using statistical means,
  helping one to be sure of its reliability

24
Quantitative Methods

• Weaknesses
• Rigid approach and attempts to control all the
  variable factors that might influence findings
• Inappropriate to measure human knowledge attitude
  and practice
• Insensitive to complexities of human interactions

25
Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

• Blending of methods captures a more complete,
  holistic and contextual portrayal of the subject
  under study.
• Weakness and limitations of each method are
  counterbalanced therefore neutralizes rather than
  compounding the problems

26
Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

• Coding responses to open ended questions
  generated from quantitative enquiries.
• Using statistical methods to analyse ranked data
  sets arising from participatory enquiries i.e.
  creating frequency tables from the coded data

27
Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

• Using participatory techniques in exploratory
  studies to set up hypotheses which can then be
  tested through questionnaire based sample
  surveys.
• Choosing a random sample and conducting a
  questionnaire survey (quantitative) to gain
  information on key variables for in-depth
  qualitative survey