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FIELD ACTION REPORTS
Open Access

Remote Interviewer Training for COVID-19 Data Collection: Challenges and Lessons Learned From 3 Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

Shani Turke, Sarah Nehrling, Samuel Olanipekun Adebayo, Pierre Akilimali, Ivan Idiodi, Anthony Mwangi, Elizabeth Larson, Caroline Moreau and Philip Anglewicz
Global Health: Science and Practice April 2021, 9(1):177-186; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-20-00468
Shani Turke
aBill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
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  • For correspondence: sturke1@jh.edu
Sarah Nehrling
bGarabam Consulting, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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Samuel Olanipekun Adebayo
cCentre for Research, Evaluation Resources and Development, Abuja, Nigeria.
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Pierre Akilimali
dKinshasa School of Public Health, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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Ivan Idiodi
cCentre for Research, Evaluation Resources and Development, Abuja, Nigeria.
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Anthony Mwangi
eInternational Centre for Reproductive Health, Mombasa, Kenya.
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Elizabeth Larson
aBill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
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Caroline Moreau
fDepartment of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
gSoins et santé. Center for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health, INSERM 1018 Villejuif, France.
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Philip Anglewicz
aBill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
fDepartment of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
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Key Findings

  • Remote interviewer training for large-scale surveys can be an effective replacement to in-person learning in low-resource contexts when data are urgently needed and in-person learning is impossible.

  • An intermittent Internet connection, distribution of physical materials to interviewers, and interviewer experience and social cohesion are critical to the success of remote training.

Key Implications

  • Training designers need to balance streamlining design choices for efficiency and the importance of contextual adaptation to improve training quality.

  • In-person learning still conveys significant advantages over remote learning. Training designers should evaluate local context and a project's unique circumstances before proceeding with remote training.

ABSTRACT

There is an urgent need for data to inform coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic response efforts. At the same time, the pandemic has created challenges for data collection, one of which is interviewer training in the context of social distancing. In sub-Saharan Africa, in-person interviewer training and face-to-face data collection remain the norm, requiring researchers to think creatively about transitioning to remote settings to allow for safer data collection that respects government guidelines. Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA, formerly PMA2020) has collected both cross-sectional and longitudinal data on key reproductive health measures in Africa and Asia since 2013. Relying on partnerships with in-country research institutes and cadres of female interviewers recruited from sampled communities, the project was well-positioned to transition to collecting data on COVID-19 from the onset of the pandemic. This article presents PMA's development of a remote training system for COVID-19 surveys in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Nigeria, including challenges faced and lessons learned. We demonstrate that remote interviewer training can be a viable approach when data are critically needed and in-person learning is not possible. We also argue against systematic replacement of in-person trainings with remote learning, instead recommending consideration of local context and a project's individual circumstances when contemplating a transition to remote interviewer training.

  • Received: September 12, 2020.
  • Accepted: December 22, 2020.
  • Published: April 1, 2021.
  • © Turke et al.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly cited. To view a copy of the license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. When linking to this article, please use the following permanent link: https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-20-00468

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Global Health: Science and Practice: 9 (1)
Global Health: Science and Practice
Vol. 9, No. 1
April 01, 2021
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Remote Interviewer Training for COVID-19 Data Collection: Challenges and Lessons Learned From 3 Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
Shani Turke, Sarah Nehrling, Samuel Olanipekun Adebayo, Pierre Akilimali, Ivan Idiodi, Anthony Mwangi, Elizabeth Larson, Caroline Moreau, Philip Anglewicz
Global Health: Science and Practice Apr 2021, 9 (1) 177-186; DOI: 10.9745/GHSP-D-20-00468

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Remote Interviewer Training for COVID-19 Data Collection: Challenges and Lessons Learned From 3 Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
Shani Turke, Sarah Nehrling, Samuel Olanipekun Adebayo, Pierre Akilimali, Ivan Idiodi, Anthony Mwangi, Elizabeth Larson, Caroline Moreau, Philip Anglewicz
Global Health: Science and Practice Apr 2021, 9 (1) 177-186; DOI: 10.9745/GHSP-D-20-00468
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