RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES WITH DMI IN MALAWI About DMI Development Media International (DMI) delivers media campaigns aimed at changing behaviours, promoting health, and saving lives in developing countries. We are the first organisation to scientifically demonstrate that mass media can increase life-saving behaviours. In 2018, DMI published the results of its 5-year randomised controlled trial in West Africa which showed that 56% more children were taken for treatment for malaria, 73% more for diarrhoea and 39% more for pneumonia following exposure to our campaign. Modelling indicates that over 3000 lives were saved during the campaign and that our approach is one of the most cost-effective ways of saving children’s lives. DMI has two priorities: first, to continue to generate ground-breaking research, and second, to take our proven strategies to scale, saving as many lives as possible. We work across a range of health issues, including child survival, reproductive health, nutrition, hygiene, and early childhood development. DMI works in close partnership with leading experts in health, including WHO, UNICEF and LSHTM and has been funded by some of the world’s most prestigious organisations including the Wellcome Trust, FCDO, Comic Relief, the Global Innovation Fund, Unorthodox Philanthropy, the Mulago Foundation and Hilton Foundation. DMI has offices in Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Madagascar, Uganda, and Zambia. DMI’s headquarters is in London and provides the strategic direction for the whole organisation. Find out more on our website. Research opportunities DMI is seeking a research partner to implement a baseline and endline cross-sectional household survey among primary caregivers of children aged <3 years in two districts in Malawi. A detailed Terms of Reference is included below. Interested parties should submit a technical and financial proposal for the work to info@developmentmedia.net by 16th February 2024. For clarifications, please contact joanna.murray@developmentmedia.net. The technical proposal should include at least the following information: Experience of your organization in conducting similar research and an example report/publication. Understanding of the assignment. Sampling strategy, data collection and analysis approach. Work plan with detailed timelines for training of fieldworkers, piloting, data collection etc. Proposed team from your organization who will work on this project, their experience, and the proposed level of effort for each staff member. Estimated budget, summary, and breakdown of the costs. Expected deliverables. TERMS OF REFERENCE: BASELINE AND ENDLINE SURVEY FOR MALAWI ECS PROJECT Objective To examine caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to early childhood stimulation (ECS) through a baseline survey. To evaluate the impact of the campaign on the outcomes of interest (caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to ECS) through an endline survey. To examine differences in outcomes of interest measured among individuals exposed and unexposed to the campaign. Target population and sample size 400 primary caregivers of children aged <3 years will be recruited from two districts in the Central region of Malawi (likely, Lilongwe and Salima) for a baseline survey. The baseline survey will take place in March-April 2024 prior to the launch of the radio campaign. 400 primary caregivers of children aged <3 years will be recruited from two districts in the Central region of Malawi (likely, Lilongwe and Salima) for an endline survey. The endline survey will be conducted in January-February 2025. Study setting, sampling approach and timing Districts have been selected with good coverage of radio transmission and similar prevalence of child stunting/ poverty. The number of enumeration areas (EAs) per district will be purposively selected based on coverage of radio transmission, roughly 50-50 mix of rural, peri-urban/urban areas. The number of primary caregivers of children aged <3 years interviewed from each village/cluster/enumeration area (EA) will be based on population proportional to size (PPS). Households with children aged <3 years should be screened for, if an existing list of the same is not available. From this list, households stratified by child’s age should be randomly selected. Equal number of households with children aged between 6-12 months, 13-24 months, and 25-36 months will be selected. A 10% oversampling of households should be done in anticipation of data collection and/or reporting errors. The sampling strategy is conditional to approval by the ethics committee and could be modified. Following ethics approval, any changes to the sampling strategy will be determined in joint agreement by the Service Provider and DMI. The preparation for the survey (I.e., enumerator training, local permissions etc.) should start in February 2024 and actual baseline survey data collection should start in March 2024 at the latest. The following specifications must be followed: A final sample of 400 (200 per district) primary caregivers who have children aged <3 should be interviewed in two districts at baseline and at endline [total sample size 400 baseline and 400 endline= 800]. This is not a longitudinal study so different samples can be recruited for baseline and endline surveys. Equal number of households with children aged between 6-12 months, 13-24 months, and 25-36 months will be selected. The Service Provider will provide GPS coordinates for each interview (directly from tablet or from traditional GPS locator if not possible to do with the tablet). Interviewers will have the ability to speak Chichewa and will conduct interviews by verbally translating the English questionnaire, if needed. The Service Provider must check with DMI which languages enumerators will need to be proficient in prior to selecting and training them. The Service Provider will train all the data collectors prior to baseline as well as endline surveys in following: the study sampling strategy, conducting the interviews in the key languages spoken in the study provinces, seeking informed consent, using the tablets for data collection, collecting data accurately. The questionnaire will have approximately 100 questions with skip patterns and should be programmed onto tablets according to DMI’s specifications. Prior to the baseline survey (and if any changes are made to the endline questionnaire), the Service Provider will cognitively test the questionnaire separately with 10 primary caregivers (aged 18-49 years) who have children aged under 3 years in each of the study districts prior to the actual survey and provide DMI with data and feedback. Senior personnel from the Service Providers team will supervise this process. The questionnaire will be revised following cognitive testing. Subsequently, but prior to the survey, the Service Provider will use tablets for piloting the questionnaire separately with 10 primary caregivers (aged 18-49 years) in each of the study districts and provide DMI with data and feedback. Senior personnel from the Service Providers team will supervise this process. The Service Provider’s team is responsible for obtaining the necessary approvals from the provincial and districts authorities promptly following ethics approval prior to conducting the survey. DMI is responsible for obtaining ethical approval for this study. The Service Provider will be responsible for monitoring the quality of data collection and conduct back-checks on minimum 10% of randomly selected study sample to ensure validity of participants interviewed. The Service Provider will be responsible for monitoring, on an on-going basis, the accuracy with which data is being collected by enumerators and provide DMI feedback during weekly calls. The Service Provider agrees to allow DMI to observe the training of enumerators and request additional training if DMI deems it to be necessary. Deliverables The key deliverables are listed below. Deliverables will be timebound and specific deadlines will be agreed between the parties once all approvals are in place. Review translation of all the survey tools and share any further edits with DMI. Produce household sampling frame, fieldwork schedule and enumerator training manual (based on final questionnaire) with DMIs approval. The framework should incorporate the agreed sampling strategy. Recruit team of enumerators to conduct household survey. Prepare all necessary field materials for enumerators to ensure they can administer the survey on paper for cognitive interviews and electronic devices, in local languages as required. Conduct training of enumerators (staggered start of field work may begin after 1st training session is completed). The training must be conducted to DMI’s satisfaction, and a payment is attached to this deliverable. DMI staff should be invited to attend this training. Following ethical approval, cognitively test the survey tools among sample outlined above and provide feedback and data files to DMI. Programme questionnaire using survey software onto electronic devices and test thoroughly. The outcome questions will be programmed to appear randomly at each interview to limit interviewer and interviewee bias. Send DMI the online questionnaire for testing Pilot the revised questionnaire among sample outlined above and share feedback and data files with DMI. Finalize the questionnaire on electronic devices using survey software following feedback from DMI. Finalize and refine sampling frame, fieldwork schedule, and enumerator training manual with DMIs approval. Repeat training of enumerators to discuss changes made to the questionnaire following piloting of the survey. Conduct survey with 400 primary caregivers of children aged <3 years in two districts of Malawi. Supervise on an on-going basis the accuracy with which data is being collected by enumerators and provide DMI feedback during weekly calls. Conduct back-checks of minimum 10% of randomly selected study sample to ensure validity of participants interviewed and monitor the quality of data collection on an ongoing basis and send data files to DMI. Develop a protocol for data cleaning once the survey questionnaire is finalized and uploaded on tablets and share the protocol with DMI. Supervise timely data checking and coding and provide a clean and complete dataset along with variable code list and fieldwork report to DMI. Also send uncleaned data set and code used for data cleaning to DMI. The dataset provided must be of a quality acceptable to DMI and a payment is attached to this deliverable. Provide on-going support to DMI regarding any dataset queries. Finalize all the data collection tools integrating the results of the pilot study.