NIHR-C-it DU-it
Community Data Use for Integrated ANC
Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research | NIHR
Partners: LVCT Health, KEMRI, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Project Duration: October 2022 to September 2026
Facility and community health data is rapidly changing from paper to electronic across Kenya. Multiple digital systems are being developed, but these do not link. Community health volunteers (CHVs) and facility staff need to work together using data to monitor and improve uptake of services. Antenatal care (ANC) is an example of a service where this is important as Kenya in adopting WHO’s ambitious target of 8 ANC contacts. This research will demonstrate how to link the data and use it, providing missing evidence on the impact, costs and scale-up of data linkage and use
Our Intervention
The C-it DU-it study targets the interface between the community and the facility. Data linkage for data use is at its heart with ANC picked as an example of what is possible. Our short name C-it DU-it (pronounced “see-it; do-it”) is an acronym intended to convey ‘seeing’ linked data (C-it) and ‘doing’ or acting on the data (DU-it).
The study seeks to strengthen community health systems in Kenya through ANC data linkage and use, learning lessons for other contexts.
Our objectives are to:
- To increase ANC uptake and quality in Western Kenya by;
- linking community and facility digital ANC data systems, creating a system able to track an individual woman throughout pregnancy and schedule appointments (‘C-it’)
- strengthening the capacity of community work improvement teams to use ‘C-it’ data for quality improvement and of CHVs to deliver community-based ANC contacts (‘DU-it’).
- To co-develop research strategies with county policymakers that address evidence gaps to scale-up community health systems strengthening through ‘C-it DU-it’:
- To strengthen the capacity of communities, county managers, Kenyan researchers, and institutions to set the community health research agenda and deliver major implementation research.
Our Research
Our research primarily focuses on Homa Bay before scaling up to Kisumu, Migori and Kakamega counties.
Featured Video
Our Partners
Partners with excellent reputations and national influence are leading this study. This study is under the leadership of Homa Bay County who are co-investigators. LVCT is the project lead, and our role is in strengthening community health system and scale up. KEMRI who conduct large health systems trials in Western Kenya and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine will support in our research and the data digitisation experts from GiND will develop and test systems for data linkage adapted to each county. The project is working with the sub-county teams and hundreds of Community Health Promoters who identify pregnancy and refer women to ANC services.
Featured News and Blogs
A Festival of Learning: C-it DU-it Hosts Inaugural Learning Event
“C-it DU-it” (pronounced “see it; do it”) hosted its inaugural Learning Event in Homa Bay in October 2024. This marked the first gathering of Homa Bay’s 16 Work Improvement Teams (WITs) to share innovations in the early identification and referral of pregnant women. The energy in the room was electric as the WITs presented their hand-drawn posters, turning the conference space into a vibrant showcase of ideas.
Read more: Festival of Learning Event
Transforming the Community Health Workforce: A Liverpool-Homabay Exchange
The Transforming the Community Health Workforce program is a unique mutual learning exchange between local government in Homa Bay County in Kenya and Liverpool, UK. Unlike traditional South-to-South collaborations, this initiative fosters South-to-North and North-to-South learning, enabling both regions to share knowledge and best practices. The exchange is jointly hosted by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and LVCT Health, a non-governmental organization in Kenya.
Read more: https://lvcthealth.org/transforming-the-community-health-workforce-a-liverpool-homabay-exchange/