Hope you are well. Just thought to bring this up for discussion.
We have always struggled to measure coverage of public health programs. You can use validated program data to measure the numerator but often the denominator - people you need to serve - is often unavailable. Alternatively, if you use conventional sources like government officials or even community leaders, those at the margins of the community are often excluded. We have struggled to address this. Tried conventional census and even crowdsourcing. All too often, these are too expensive and time consuming. Using government census data is limiting as often they are only available at the district level. How can you tell the population of a UC [*see note below] (or other sub-district level) or the area of your project. Or the catchment area of a health facility or a school
Using Google Buildings open source data, we can estimate the population of areas within a couple of hours (shorter with machine learning) and accurately. The process can be done for entire districts. It also gives points of interests such as schools, hospitals, stores etc. in the locality.
Use cases:
Measuring population of localities to calculate the denominator of people to be reached - for coverage of program measurement or estimating the quantum of resources for planning
Measuring access - by estimating travel times to see how many people live with 10, 30 or 60 minutes of a facility
Measuring market depth. How many shops can sell consumer items or health facilities or schools in the locality
Here is a video<https://www.linkedin.com/posts/resdev_census-data-are-only-available-at-... <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/resdev_census-data-are-only-available-at-... of the process. Would love to discuss with anyone interested.
With best regards
Adnan
Dr. Adnan Khan, MBBS, MS.
Chief Knowledge Officer
Email: adnan@resdev.org
Mobile: +92-300-500-6101
www.resdev.org<http://www.resdev.org/>
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HIFA profile: Adnan Khan is a Chief Knowledge Officer with Research and Development Solutions in Pakistan, and has a professional interest in health systems research, with a particular focus on participatory and community driven approaches to family planning. adnan AT resdev.org
[*Note from HIFA moderator (NPW): I think this stands for 'Union Council' 'A Union Council (UC) is the smallest rural administrative and local government unit in Pakistan. It's a key part of the country’s local governance structure and plays a crucial role in managing local affairs.' ChatGPT]