Table 1. Data quality dimensions and indicators defined in the World Health Organization data quality report card.
| Indicator | Definitiona |
|---|---|
| Dimension 1: Completeness of reporting | |
| Completeness of health facility reporting | The percentage of expected monthly health post and health centre reports that were received by the three district health offices. |
| Timeliness of health facility reporting | The percentage of monthly reports from health posts and health centres that were received on time by their respective district, according to the fixed deadline. |
| Completeness of MCH indicator data | The number of missing and zerob values for each MCH indicator in each PHCU and district service report. |
| Dimension 2: Internal Consistency of reported data | |
| Accuracy of event reporting: identification of moderate and extreme outliers | The number of moderate and extreme outliers for each MCH indicator in each PHCU and district service report. Moderate outliers were defined as values that were at least ± two standard deviations from the average value for a specific indicator for a given district at a specified time. Values were considered extreme outliers when they were at least ± three standard deviations from the average value. |
| Consistency over time | Consistency of the number of events for a MCH indicator in the year of analysis compared with the average number of events reported for the same indicator for the two previous years combined expressed as a ratio (i.e. number of events in current year divided by average number of events in two previous years). |
| Internal consistency between indicators | Consistency between the number of events reported for two indicators expected to correlate. MCH indicators expected to correlate include: |
| Dimension 3: External consistency of population data | |
| Consistency of Population Projectionsf | Consistency between official country projection for live births and United Nations population projection for the year of interest. |
| Consistency of denominator | Comparison of district-level official estimates for pregnant women and children under 1 year of age with alternate estimates for pregnant women and children under 1 year derived from an alternate source (e.g. household-based survey). |
| Dimension 4: External consistency of coverage rate | The level of discordance between data collected through the HMIS and the estimates obtained from the recent survey conducted with women who had a birth outcome in the preceding year. |
ANC1 –Antenatal Care First Visit; ANC4 –Antenatal Care Fourth Visit; DTP1 –Diphteria, Tetanus, Pertussis first dose; DTP3 –Diphteria, Tetanus, Pertussis third dose; MCH—Maternal and Child Health; PHCU—Primary Health Care Unit
a Definitions adapted from the Data Quality Report Card (DQRC) guideline for this study
b We only assessed MCH indicators for which no true zero values would be expected
c Women who seek care during their pregnancy are also more likely to seek care for their children [23]
d The number of ANC4 visits should either be approximately similar to or lower than the number of ANC1 visits recorded but never higher
e The number of DTP3 doses should either be approximately similar to or lower than the number of DTP1 doses administered but never higher
f This indicator cannot be calculated at the sub-national (i.e. district) level given the absence of UN population projections at that level.