HIPNET - Health Information and Publications Network

Population & Health Materials Working Group Meeting Notes - June 14, 2001

Action Items: These are agenda items which require you to do something. They are here at the beginning to make it easier for you. Thanks.

New name for Population & Health Materials Working Group
Please send in your suggestions for a new new for this group within the next few weeks. It must be something that is easy to pronounce and remember, and hopefully conveys the meaning of the group's mission. Send suggestions to Peggy D'Adamo, and they will be circulated at the November meeting.
Volunteers for the next IT conference planning committee are needed. To volunteer, contact Steve Goldstein
D&D Group
If you are interested in being notified of upcoming D&D meetings, please e-mail Rita Feinberg. The next meeting will be in late July.
ICT Evaluation Working Group
To join an evaluation working sub-group, which will be further developing tools for the evaluation of our uses of IT, contact Theresa Norton.
PHN CAs webmaster listserv: We'd like to revive this listserv. Please forward your webmaster's name and contact information to Peggy D'Adamo. If any webmaster is interested in coordinating the listserve, please let us know.
FamPlan Glossary now online!:
Please try out the new online version at http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Training/trainmat/famplan/index.htm and send any feedback to FHI. Consider adding a link from your own website to it.
Beta version of new RHGateway site:
Please test the new RHGatway search engine, share the URL with your colleagues and take a few minutes to review the other resources on the new site and give us your feedback by filling out the survey on the site. The new URL is www.rhgateway.org. We also need a few good PHMWG members to be part of the RHGateway Steering Committee, which will make decisions about membership in RHGateway and about features and services on the site. Contact Peggy D'Adamo, if you are interested.

Minutes

New co-chairs: Willow Gerber and Pat Shawkey have graciously volunteered to join Peggy D'Adamo as co-chairs of this group.
Report on the January 2001 Internet Conference
- The Conference Web Site contains the complete record.
- A summary of Evaluation Results is available on the web site, but the evaluations also included many written comments which are not posted.
- The group agreed to continue sponsoring a conference periodically and a conference committee will be formed to review the written comments from this conference, discuss future plans, suggest themes and speakers and organize smaller more focused seminars around specific topics when there is interest. We also agreed to encourage PHWMG members to attend the technical series of presentations that have been taking place at the National Press Club. Suggestions included having the conference more frequently, focusing on general IT issues as well as specific uses of IT on the ground in developing countries for RH project activities, getting more extensive participation from LDC representatives, focusing on IT centers being set up by Learnlink, JHPIEGO, Helen Keller.
- Volunteers for the conference planning committee are needed. To volunteer, contact Steve Goldstein.
Population, Health & Nutrition Information Project (PHN):
- Loren Sollenberger and Sarah Melendez of PHNI gave a presentation on the project. PHN is a new five-year project of the USAID Center for Population, Health and Nutrition of USAID's Bureau for Global Programs, Field Support and Research (G/PHN). Its objective is to provide G/PHN and others with essential information products and services about program needs, technologies, costs, and impacts to support accurate priority setting, design, management, and evaluation. PHNI helps the PHN Center communicate with Congress, develops specific IT systems for their use, does analysis of information and will be developing a new G/PHN website for them. The project is run by Jorge Scientific, JSI and The Futures Group International.
- The new PHN website will include completely re-written content, which may include some information which is currently available only on the USAID intranet. The target audiences for the new web site are: Congress, the general public, PHN partners, scientists and researchers working in health, population and nutrition and journalists. PHNI hopes to make the content of the new website dynamic and to integrate cooperating agency and partner information. They also want to integrate the new site with other USAID electronic resources like the Development Experience Clearinghouse and develop better search capabilities for the site. They will be also adding country-level information, which may be contributed by CAs. The site needs to be approved by the LPA office and it also needs to meet disability requirements. The initial plan is to focus on the general public first to focus on providing information on HIV/AIDS first.
- Development of the new web site will occur in three stages: (1) focus on general population, reorganization of site, new navigation tools; (2) expanding the depth of the content of the site, based on a list of topics that will be developed; and (3) adding more dynamic content like 'hot topics', adding personalization and pushing content based on user preferences. A full-time content manager has been hired. Finally, the site may eventually include a portal-like feature that would be similar (and complimentary) to RHGateway and would provide links to partner and cooperating agency web sites and specific documents on their sites.
- Discussion: We agreed that it would be useful to have guidelines for placement and size of USAID logo on CA web pages. Some concern was also expressed about USAID's plan to bring CA content on to its own site, rather than linking to it on the CA site. We also agreed that the CAs (individually and as a group) should probably talk and think more about the accessibility of their own web sites to disabled users and how to make them more user-friendly and compliant with regulations. We also agreed to continue to discuss privacy issues as well. Finally, we agreed that we should work to draw up some lessons learned from developing RHGateway that would be helpful to PHNI in developing the new site, we should continue to discuss (through the PHMWG and other venues) how the CAs can provide tie-backs to the USAID site and contribute regional and country specific information to the site.
- Resources Mentioned in the Discussion:
  - For information on USAID website standards go to: http:www.usaid.gov/info_technology/xweb. This site also includes links for privacy and disability. The majority of the information is under the Website Guidelines section.
  - This is a link to USAID standard publication standards: http://www.usaid.gov/pubs/ads/500. The related sections are "Records Management" and "Development Experience Information and Reference".
  - The USAID Thesauras (over 500 pages) is available at http://www.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACD400.pdf. Most of the relevant keywords are in the Health Section (K).
  - Privacy: Here is the link that USAID refers people to: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/m00-13.html which basically says any government-funded website must have a privacy statement (USAID requires a link to the privacy statement on every webpage) and no cookies allowed.
  - Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
    This site has information on accessibility for disabled users. The USAID web site is being re-designed to comply with these guidelines. Read USAID's statement on accessibility on its web site.
ICT Evaluation Working Group
We discussed the fact that Theresa Norton and Nathalie Likhite facilitated a session at the January conference that began to develop a set of tools for use in evaluating IT, or the use of a product, rather than the content of the product itself. See the list below. The PHMWG would like to see this developed into a toolkit by a smaller group. We might focus on discussing incentives to get users to complete surveys, develop a bank of sample survey questions, discuss how to collect more and better data on web visitors, and develop a glossary of terminology and standards for evaluation of web logs (for example) that all the CAs could use. The committee will conduct most of its business via e-mail, since there's no funding from this group for face-to-face meetings at this point.
FamPlan:
David Andrews of FHI gave a demonstration of new web-based version of the FamPlan glossary. It is easy to use so try it out at http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Training/trainmat/famplan/index.htm and send any feedback to FHI. It translates terms between English, French and Spanish and gives preferences of each participating organization. It currently includes gender attributes for Spanish nouns but no definitions. In the future FHI hopes to add gender attributes for French terms and (maybe) some definitions. If you would like to update or changes any of your own organizations terms, contact David. And, if you'd like a hard copy sent to anyone out in the field who might not be able to access the web version, he can do that as well. The PHMWG would like to thank FHI, and especially David himself, for providing web access to this great translator's resource. A version on CD-ROM isn't possible at this point due to costs.
Update on current status of RHGateway www.rhgateway.org
JHU/CCP has purchased a new search engine for Reproductive Health Gateway called Inktomi. Click on www.rhgateway.org to try it out. The new RHGateway is currently indexing 52 sites and includes 41,620 documents.
RHGateway Steering Committee: We need a few good PHMWG members to be part of the RHGateway Steering Committee, which will make decisions about membership in RHGateway and about features and services on the site, plan how to promote and publicize RHGateway among the CAs and the general RH community, and make recommendations to us about future features and funding. Contact Peggy D'Adamo, if you are interested.
USAID sponsorship of RHGateway & Gateway disclaimer: USAID has provided some funding to JHU/PIP to improve the gateway. JHU/PIP is using the funds for purchase of new software and for adding new features. USAID is currently reviewing its sponsorship and will soon give us a better sense of how comfortable it is as the sole sponsor of the gateway. This should give us a clearer idea of what kinds of information we can comfortably include with their sponsorship and we can begin to discuss how to include other important web resources with outside funding.
Future plans for RHGateway: Please review this document which was distributed at the meeting. We discussed some of the ideas for adding value to the gateway and will no doubt come up with additional ones. Please show RHGateway to your own coworkers, discuss ideas for making it more useful and better for them, and send those ideas back to us. Fill out the survey on RHGateway and soon we'll be letting you know what people think would be most useful on the site in the short and long run.

The D&D Group (Dissemination and Distribution)
This group has met often during the past year or two. It was started to share practical information at informal monthly meetings on a variety of topics and served as a valuable networking opportunity. The group still exists and would like to invite anyone working for a CA to get involved. The next meeting will be in late July at CCMC and is planned to be a retrospective analysis of where the group is going, how often it should meet, etc. Topics covered in the past have included the following: mailing lists, publications standards, translators, graphic designers, working with printers, sharing information about resources. If you are interested in being notified of upcoming D&D meetings, please e-mail Rita Feinberg.

New materials and works in progress

Multimedia Presentations from the USAID LAC PHN SOTA Course and Field Officers’ Meeting held March 12-16, posted on the web by PHNI. Inlcudes presentations on child survival, HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, malaria, TB and performance improvement.
JHPIEGO - New Materials
- Integrated Management of Pregnancy and Childbirth: Managing Complications in Pregnancy and Childbirth - new WHO manual developed by JHPIEGO, but published by WHO. Intended for midwives and doctors at the district level. For more information contact rhrpublications@who.int.
- Guidelines for Performing Breast and Pelvic Examinations (English) for healthcare providers at all levels. Helps them to strengthen their skills in performing breast and pelvic examinations and teaching breast self-examination.
- Advanced Training Skills for Reproductive Health Professionals (English and French) is designed for: trainers and faculty who wish to improve their training skills. It focuses on the group process, problem-solving and decision-making skills that all trainers need, and also describes the process of becoming an advanced trainer and coaching new trainers.
- MNH Workshop Report: Implementing Global Maternal and Neonatal Health Standards of Care
- Upcoming materials: Guidelines for Performing Breast and Pelvic Examinations in Russian and Spanish; a new edition of the Pocket Guide; the Spanish version of Integrated Management of Pregnancy and Childbirth: Managing Complications in Pregnancy and Childbirth, and two manuals on Basic Maternal and Newborn Care and Care of the Sick or Low Birth Weight Newborn.
Ipas - New Materials
- Ipas Statement on the Global Gag Rule
- Report on US Early Abortion
- New Resources on early abortion options in the US
- Ipas Africa Strategy
- Ipas Latin America Strategy
- Notas Informativas/Jovenes en Riesgo/Los adolescentes y la salud sexual (Spanish)
- Assessment tools for implementing postabortion care in refugee RH programs
- Violence, unwanted pregnancy and abortion
- Abortion and human rights in sub-Saharan Africa
- PAC scale-up report
- MVA slide set with PRCH
- New Ipas publications catalog
- Upcoming materials: Ipas is in the midst of a redesign of the MVA device over the next year to make it cheaper, with fewer parts. All training and print materials are also being re-done. Any group who works in post-abortion care and is developing materials, can contact Nina Frankel for information on the the new MVA device (frankeln@ipas.org). Ipas is also working on a set of factsheets for the Children's Summit.
NGONetworks for Health - New Materials
- All publications are available on the web site (www.ngonetworks.org) full text and free.
- At a Glance: Emergency Contraception
- At a Glance: Programming for emergency contraception
- Awareness, Mobilization, and Action for Safe Motherhood: A Field Guide
PRIME II - New Materials
- Dispatch #1: To Reach the Youth: Creating adolescent-friendly reproductive health services in Uganda
- Dispatch #2: From Community to Action: Managing postabortion complications in Rural Uttar Pradesh, India
- PRIME Postabortion Care: Strategic interventions targeted at the primary level
- Transfer of Learning: A guide for strengthening health care services in production with JHPIEGO. This guide provides advice to supervisors, trainers, health care workers on specific things they can do before, during and after a training or learning intervention to esure that new knowledge and skills are effectively transferred to the workplace. To be published in English, French and Spanish in November 2001.
MSH - New Materials
Print Publications:
- User Fees for Health Services: Guidelines for Protecting the Poor
- Ensuring Equal Access to Health Services: User Fee Systems and the Poor
- Managing Reproductive Health Services with a Gender Perspective (The Manager)
- Barishahi District Plans to Strengthen its Gender Perspective (Case Study to accompany The Manager)
- E-Learning for Program Managers through Global Information Resources (The Manager)
- Discovering E-learning Resources Available on the World Wide Web and by E-Mail (Supplement o accompany The Manager)
- Buildling Sustainability through Better Managerment 1995 - 2000: Family Planning Management Development Project
- Innovations in Health Care Financing: Experiences from Kenya
- Building Sustainable Health Services: The Story of FEMAP
- PMC: Experiencias con el Proceso de Mejoramieno Continuo de la Calidad
- HOSPICAL: A Tool for Allocating Hospital Costs (forthcoming in July)
- Addressing Unment Needs for Reproductive Health Services: Decision-Linked Research in the Arab World (forthcoming in July)
Electronic Products:
- The Manager's Electronic Resource Center
  http://erc.msh.org
- International Drug Price Indicator Guide
  http://erc.msh.org/priceguide
- The Provider's Guide to Quality & Culture
  MSH's eBookstore
  http://www.msh.org/publications
Family Health International - New Materials
- Meeting the Needs of Young Clients: A Guide to Providing Reproductive Health Services to Adolescents
- This module is the final part of FHI’s Contraceptive Technology Series.
- It is available in English, Spanish, and French.
- The module includes reasons for integrating CAP services with other health services, information about contraceptive methods most appropriate for breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding women, and contraceptive methods appropriate for women who have had spontaneous (miscrriage) or induced abortions (either uncomplicated or complicated).
- Contraception After Pregnancy (CAP) Module
- Adolescent Reproductive Health
- STIs
- In the works: ECPs
- Recent Networks Magazine topics (published quarterly)
- This handbook is primarily for service providers and health workers, but it can also be used by program managers, health educators, and workers in NGOs that offer health services to adolescents.
- It is designed to help health workers improve reproductive health care and services for young adults and includes sections on barriers to reproductive health care, preventing pregnancy, preventing STIs, preventing HIV/AIDS, counseling, counseling victims of violence or coercion, and creating a referral network.
- It is currently out in English, but the Spanish version will be completed in July and the French version by the end of the summer.
Upcoming FHI pubs

DELIVER - New Materials
New Publications on Securing Supplies for Reproductive Health in Developing Countries

At a recent global meeting on reproductive health supplies, the Interim Working Group (IWG) on commodity security distributed a resource packet of nine new publications, titled Meeting the Challenge: Securing Supplies for Reproductive Health. The IWG, a partnership that includes John Snow Inc. (JSI), Wallace Global Fund, Population Action International (PAI), and Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), organized the event and developed the resource packet. The nine publications include papers entitled:

1. The Need for Security in Reproductive Health Supplies
2. Defining Reproductive Health Supplies: A Survey of International Programs
3. Contraceptive Projections and the Donor Gap
4. Country Perspectives on the Future of Contraceptive Supplies
5. Lessons Learned from Five Countries
6. Donor Funding for Reproductive Health Supplies: A Crisis in the Making
7. Contraceptive Security: Toward a Framework for Global Assessment
8. Financing Contraceptive Supplies in Developing Countries: Summary of Issues, Options, and Experience
9. Gauging Awareness, Assessing Concern: Focus Group Findings on Reactions to Contraceptive Supply Shortages

These papers can be downloaded from the IWG's Web site at www.nostockouts.org. To order hard copies, contact: Julie Witherell, Population Action International, 1300 19th Street, NW, Second Floor, Washington, DC 20036, Fax: (202) 728-4177.

PRB - New Materials

World's Youth data sheet
Chartbook of DHS Survey
World Population data sheet for 2001
New catalog
Website: publications on malaria and pregnancy, breastfeeding and HIV, TB and HIV in Haiti, and HIV and Refugees.
In progress: publication on female genital cutting, compilation of media reporting on women and AIDS.

Population Reports - New Materials

Population Growth and Urbanization: Cities at the Forefront - This Istanbul + 5 Special Session edition of Population Reports is a preview of a larger report on urbanization, to be published next year.
Poplation and the Environment: The global challenge
Essentials book available in English, French and Spanish; forthcoming in Portuguese and Arabic.
Issues in progress include: Informed Choice: Helping People Decide, Youth and HIV/AIDS: Risks and Responses; The Reproductive Revolution: An Update (on the DHS surveys); New Contraceptive Choices.

REPROLINE - New Materials

Clinical Care of Women with HIV Living in Limited-Resource Settings - the first in a series of HRSA funded series of tutorials and materials on HIV/AIDS.
MNH Workshop Report 2000: Implementing Global Maternal and Neonatal Health Standards of Care - The overall goal of the workshop was to finalize a strategy for promoting evidence-based maternal and neonatal health standards globally.

POPLINE & Media/Materials Clearinghouse - New Materials

International Family Planning Perspectives on CD-ROM - easy access to 10 years of research. The CD-ROM holds an archive of articles, digests and updates published between 1990 and 1999 -- more than 700 searchable files. Also includes the annual French- and Spanish-language editions. Each article is available as a printable PDF document. Also has a "Search" function. A joint project of AGI and JHU/Population Information Program.
EPopulation Reports CD-ROM - a multimedia version of the quarterly journal Population Reports--all the content of the new issue, Population and the Environment: The Global Challenge, plus interactive enhancements that provide additional depth and detail.
Health Communication Materials Network - http://www.hcmn.org/ - HCMN provides a forum for health communication specialists to share ideas, information, and samples of health communication materials with their colleagues, and to seek advice and suggestions from others working in this field. Anyone involved in health communication materials development is invited to join. Includes a web site, listserv. Over 250 people worldwide have already joined. Send an e-mail to Susan Leibtag at sleibtag@jhuccp.org
Videoshare - new searchable online database of 120 videos available for use in project activities. Includes feature films, television spots, documentaries, television serial dramas, and special programming focusing on public health.

Attendance

David Andrews - FHI, dandrews@fhi.org
Lori Ashford - PRB, lashford@prb.org
Kriss Barker - Chemonics, kbarker@chmonics.net
Liz Creel - PRB, lcreel@prb.org
Peggy D'Adamo - JHU/CCP, mdadamo@jhuccp.org
Heather Davis - DELIVER/JSI, hdavis@jsi.com
Sonia Elabd - JHPIEGO, selabd@jhpiego.org
David Elwell - EHP, elwelldr@ehrpoject.org
Rita Feinberg - Path/NGO Networks for Health, rfeinberg@ngonetworks.org
Eldri E. Ferguson - DELIVER/JSI, efreguso@jsi.com
Nina Frankel - Ipas, frankeln@ipas.org
Willow Gerber - DELIVER/JSI, willow_gerber@jsi.com
Gayle Gibbons - FANTA Project/AED, ggibons@aed.org
Steve Goldstein - JHU/CCP, sgoldste@jhuccp.org
Kathleen Hines - KHPIEGO, khines@jhpiego.org
Dana Lewison - JHPIEGO, dlewison@jhpiego.org
Zuali Malsawma - PRB, zuali@prb.org
Sara Melendez - PHNI, smelendez@phnip.com
Theresa Norton - JHPIEGO, tnorton@jhpiego.org
Margaret Rabb - Intrah/PRIME, mrabb@intrah.org
Ward Rinehart - JHU/PIP, wrinehar@jhuccp@org
Jennifer Rodine - MSH, jrodine@msh.org
Pat Shawkey - DELIVER/JSI, pat_shawkey@jsi.com
Cecelia Snyder - CCMC, csnyder@ccmc.org
Loren Sollenberger - PHNI, lsollenberger@phnip.com
Antonia Wolff - SARA Project/AED, awolff@aed.org

Contacts:
Peggy D'Adamo, 410-659-6256; mdadamo@jhuccp.org
Willow Gerber, willow_gerber@jsi.com
Pat Shawkey, pat_shawkey@jsi.com