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AN ASSESSMENT OF LQAS TO EVALUATE MALARIA OUTCOME INDICATORS 73
misclassification potential at different levels of cover- Mozambique MIS are too small to satisfy the above
age.7,18–20 criteria. In such cases, we select a decision rule that
For this article, the target coverage for both indica- minimizes the overall error. For example, in rural
tors was 70%, in accordance with the Year-1 target areas with a target sample of 15, we used 9 as the
of the Mozambique President’s Malaria Initiative for decision rule since this minimizes the overall classifi-
ITN possession.21 Any area with 40% coverage was cation area. In the ‘Discussion’ section, we present
deemed severely low. The observed sample sizes at the recommendations to ensure adequate sample sizes
EA level in this particular Mozambique survey vary, for LQAS classifications in future surveys.
resulting in different cutoffs for different areas. We
sought decision rules to reduce two forms of misclas-
sification error—the probability of classifying an area
with high coverage (70%) as low, and the probability Results
of classifying an area with low coverage (40%) as Table 1 displays the provincial and national results for
high with the combined total error being <20%. In the two indicators, household possession of any
other words, for each observed sample size we aimed bednet and household possession of any ITN, as
to find a cutoff, d, which satisfies the following three reported in the Mozambique MIS report. As seen in
conditions: the second column of the table, no province in
Mozambique achieved the 70% target for bednet cov-
Table 1 Provincial and national coverage estimates for MIS cluster-samples and LQAS result summaries for household
possession of any bednet or ITN for a 70% coverage target: Mozambique, 2007
Table 2 LQAS results for household possession of nets in estimate is just above 50% for the indicator ‘house-
Manica province, Mozambique, 2007a hold possession of any bednet’, all of the provinces
contain several EAs classified with adequate coverage.
Any bednet Any ITN
in HH in HH In Sofala province, nearly half of the EAs (16 of 34)
EA Decision
ID Total rule Yes LQAS Yes LQAS are classified as high, versus <10% in Maputo prov-
175 18 10 8 Low 8 Low
ince (2 out of 32). For ITN coverage the pattern is
different. Manica province has the highest percent
176 20 12 14 High 11 Low (11%, or 3 out of 28) of areas classified as high for
177 20 12 9 Low 8 Low ITN coverage. Every other province falls <10%, and
178 20 12 12 High 10 Low eight provinces do not display any areas with high
coverage.
179 19 11 11 High 8 Low
180 20 12 10 Low 8 Low
181 17 10 15 High 11 High
Discussion
182 20 12 14 High 9 Low
To illustrate the effective use of LQAS to assess per-
183 20 12 5 Low 4 Low formance on malaria outcome indicators based on
184 20 12 12 High 10 Low data collected as part of the MIS, we applied this
Since LQAS is used primarily to classify areas as sampling and LQAS should consider the following in
‘high’ or ‘low’ (rather than estimating the exact pro- the design: first, the clusters (or EA) should be
portion of the population covered for each local area), aligned with programmatically relevant supervision
the method does not require large samples to main- areas. This ensures that recommended responses
tain excellent accuracy and its results lead directly based on the LQAS classifications link directly to a
to public health action. Additionally, the simplicity programme area. Secondly, the within-cluster (or
of the LQAS tool empowers local programme man- EA) sample sizes should be fixed across clusters,
agers to implement the classification schemes with which allows for one set of decision rules to ease
little additional training. These favourable attributes training of programme managers in applying LQAS
encourage the use of LQAS for local malaria pro- to their supervision areas. Thirdly, these fixed
gramme M&E. Despite these benefits, to our knowl- sample sizes must be large enough to meet the con-
edge, most examples of LQAS applications only straints for determining the decision rules—for
aggregate LQAS data if information is collected in example, we were unable to meet our target of overall
‘all’ lots or areas. Such aggregation is also feasible classification error <20% for sample sizes less than 17.
when a sample of the lots is selected, so long as A sample size of 19 at the EA level is sufficient to
they are sampled in a probabilistic way.23 Recent maintain the error level <20% when looking at a
M&E activities have created precedent for taking sam- 30% difference in programme performance (pU –
ples of lots rather than requiring that all be pL ¼ 0.30); a smaller difference or smaller error rate
KEY MESSAGES
Incorporating LQAS into multistage cluster sample surveys provides ‘additional’ information that
supports local programme management as well as the usual macro-level results reported for malaria
indicators.
The following considerations facilitate the integration of LQAS and multistage cluster sample surveys:
Fixed sample size at the cluster level, to allow uniform training of programme managers in applying LQAS
decision rules to interpret survey data.
Large enough sample sizes at the cluster level to control for LQAS classification errors.
Delineation of cluster boundaries to match programme areas, to ensure LQAS classification actions link
directly to a specific programme implementation area.
7
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Appendix 1
malaria surveys in low-transmission areas. Trans the Royal LQAS technical details
Soc Trop Med Hygiene 2001;95:266–69. The simplest form of LQAS classifies an area into two
13
Okoh F, Siddiqi M, Olives C, Valadez JJ. Nigeria LQAS categories, for the purposes of this article, ‘high’ and
Baseline Household Survey. Buja: National Malaria Control ‘low’. The sample of size n is collected in an area,
Program, 2006.
14 called a ‘lot’. The number of successes, X, is counted
Ministry of Health of Eritrea. LQAS Survey Report Hamset I
and compared with a decision rule, d. If fewer than d
Program. Asmara: Ministry of Health, 2008.
15 successes in an area are observed, then the area is
Dias A, Pinto A, Weiss B, Costa MJ. Inque´rito LQAS Po´s
Campanha ‘‘Viva a Vida com Saúde’’: Relato´rio Final. Luanda,
classified as ‘low’. If d or more successes are observed,
2006. then the area is classified as ‘high’.
16
Laly R, Valadez J, Gbangbade S, Vargas W. Evaluation
For a fixed n, the decision rule is determined by the
(par la me´thode LQAS) de la campagne inte´gre´e d’octobre following.
2007 de distribution des MIILD, de l’Albendazole et de la (i) The coverage level, pU, where an area should be
vitamine A aux enfants de moins de cinq ans et du niveau
classified as high.
de quelques indicateurs de suivi de la lutte contre le
paludisme Benin: Direction Nationale De La Protection (ii) The coverage level, pL, where an area should be
Sanitaire Programme National De Lutte Contre Le classified as low.
(iii) The amount of error, , allowed for mis-
Table A1 LQAS decision rules and alpha beta errors for samples sizes ranging from 8 to 22