In this video, we're going to go over some logistical considerations that you want to keep in mind as you prepare for the field, as well as when you are actually in the field doing your data collection. One thing you'll definitely want to make sure that you do prior to going into the field at all, is to gather as much information as possible about the area where you will be deploying your survey. That will help you plan for your logistics. It'll help you think through some very important questions, such as whether or not there's accommodation either in or near the clusters. For that you might be looking at guest houses, or hotels, schools sometimes can be loaned to you or to your data collectors, health centers, government buildings, etc. Or will your data collectors actually need to come back to a central point every day? Both of those have different implications in terms of timing and in terms of pricing. You'll also specifically want to think about if they do have to come back to a central point, what does that mean for the number of days per cluster, and therefore how much time you're going to be in the field overall? How is this going to impact your overall budget? A second consideration you'll want to think about, is whether the accommodations have reliable electricity, or will data collectors need to bring either solar or car chargers or extra batteries or power banks or have to supply their own electricity in whatever way. Again, this has implications for your budget. As you think through your transportation considerations, you'll need to think about your driver to data collector ratio. If your clusters are very large, maybe it makes sense to use either a car or motorbike to get between houses. If your clusters are relatively small, maybe it makes more sense to walk from one household to the other. There might also be boats. If you're near lake, or near rivers, rickshaws, public transportation, you really want to make sure to explore all of the ways that are possible to reduce the time between the households. In many settings, however, renting a vehicle or renting vehicles is going to be necessary. But in other cases, particularly if you're doing your survey in high population density areas, you might actually be able to get away with just using public transportation or bikes or motorbikes to get around. You also want to make sure you have a communication plan in place before going to the field. There should be a constant ongoing communication between the team leaders and the supervisors. We have found in our experience that messaging apps, particularly WhatsApp, can be useful, particularly in rural areas where cellphone reception might be either non-existent or very limited. In that case, you might have more luck sending a WhatsApp message, than trying to call someone who can't receive your call, or yourself not being able to make the call because the reception is so poor. It's also very important that a supervisor be designated as the person who is responsible for knowing where all of the teams are each day and each evening, so where they're sleeping and where they plan to be during the day. That's more of a safety consideration just to make sure that there have not been any unforeseen and dangerous situations, especially in more remote areas. As much as possible, team leaders should try to prepare the community that they're going to be going into by notifying the community leaders ahead of time, a couple of days ahead of time if possible. If not, then at least the previous day, regardless before they arrive in the communities so that when they arrive, they can get right to work with their data collectors. If it is at all possible, do your very best to avoid data collection during the rainy season. The rainy season can mean flooded roads. Roads that can't be used at all, and that might mean that some households or some clusters are completely inaccessible. If you do have roads, they might be muddy. Then muddy roads can lead to cars getting stuck, bikes getting stuck, motorbikes getting stuck. That means more days and more effort trying to just deal with the weather as opposed to collecting data efficiently. It's also the time, especially in rural areas, where people will be working in their fields, and so they're unlikely to be at their primary residence. You will likely do a lot of showing up and having empty houses, and no one to interview for those days. In malaria-endemic areas, having a lot of rain will also mean it's mosquito season, and mosquito season puts your interviewers at risk for getting malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. Finally, it's just pretty miserable. It's wet, it's just muddy. It's just a general unpleasant data collection experience. That, in turn, will affect morale in your teams, and that, in turn, will affect efficiency and possibly your data quality. If after hearing all of those things, you still decide that you have to collect your data during the rainy season, you'll want to make sure that your data collectors have rain boots and raincoats as well as bed nets. Do your best to make the conditions as manageable as they can be. However, pretty much inevitably, you will need to allow for more time for your data collection if you do choose to do it in the rainy season for the reasons that we've mentioned previously. There are some indicators that are seasonal. For example, disease incidence, particularly malaria incidence, care-seeking for pneumonia for example. For those, you'll need to make sure that you're collecting your data in the season that is most appropriate to capture these seasonal indicators. In terms of safety and security, you'll want to make sure that each team leader or each vehicle, depending on how you set up your survey, is equipped with a first aid kit. You also want to try to make sure that team leaders know what to do in case of an emergency. That can mean then whether they know the number for first responders, if that's applicable in your setting, or that they know where the closest health facilities are. Data collection can be a somewhat risky activity, so you really want to make sure that you have a plan in place to make sure your data collectors are safe. If it's possible, try to make sure that health and travel insurance is available to your data collectors and purchase it for them. Again, so many things can happen during fieldwork that are unpredictable, even with having taken as many precautions as possible, it still can be a relatively dangerous activity. So make sure that you protect the people who are working for you. If you are doing data collection in particularly unsafe areas, so maybe conflict areas or just generally unsafe areas, there are extra precautions that you'll need to take. One of the ways to know what those precautions are for your particular setting is to ask the local organizations what they're doing and how they're managing to continue their work in the areas that you're planning to go to. If that doesn't lead to any useful information, you can also contact the UN aid to inquire about what currently they're recommending in terms of safety precautions. You also need to be mindful when you're making decisions about which data collectors to hire for this work. There might be ethnic tensions between different ethnic groups as well as gender considerations that you'll want to keep in mind, especially as you gather sensitive information about family planning, etc. Try to find out as much as you can about whether or not these exist in your setting, then plan accordingly when you're selecting your data collectors. If it's both possible and appropriate, consider maybe hiring a security team to provide support during data collection. That is more appropriate in settings that are perhaps conflict settings or highly unsafe, highly dangerous areas. Finally, you do want to ensure that the community is aware that data collection is going to take place ahead of time. You have to keep in mind what you and your team will look like from the community's point of view. If you're coming as a contingency of cars with a lot of people and no advanced warning, that very easily could be interpreted, otherwise cause alarm in the community, and could lead to some unfortunate reactions by the community, that could be quite dangerous. Interviewer safety is really paramount. It should be a guiding factor as you make decisions about whether or not to collect data. In some cases, maybe it's best to wait until either you have a way to have more protections in place or until things even in the area of interest. Always on the side of caution. Interviewer teams, often are working in areas that is not where they're from so your data collectors might be coming from a nearby big city, and then you're collecting data in a rural area. These differences can be very obvious to local communities. You're also letting people into communities that have tablets and maybe show more wealth than the local community has. That makes them easy targets for both theft or unwanted attention. Some of the things you can do to try and reduce those risks will be to ensure that you have a contact with local authorities as we just discussed. Making sure people know you're coming ahead of time is really important. Making sure that your data collectors don't use the tablets for anything else other than data collection. Keeping them tucked away, making sure to not be brandishing them around for everyone to see. Making the decision about whether to use some study identifiers, either badges or shirts or any other, maybe hats, devices, et cetera. Something that makes it visible that this person is part of the study team. Sometimes it can be helpful because people trust the authority nature, being part of a system, being part of an organization, and having that badge or that shirt helps encourage that feeling. In other settings, it might make your data collectors more for a visible target and more easy to target for nefarious purposes. Really try to find out locally what makes more sense for your survey, for your study. As best as possible, make sure your team leaders find safe accommodation for their teams and that the teams stay together. Depending on how you're allocating per diem or payment for your data collectors, some might be motivated to find maybe lower, less expensive accommodation or things like that, but try to discourage that at the expense of not staying together. As a team, there is strength in numbers for safety. Finally, selecting data collectors locally. Locally not only in the country but locally really in that particular region can help for many different reasons. Safety and security is one of them. Having people who are from the area who can help guide what is normal, what is not normal, have that sense of how things are supposed to be, can be really helpful in terms of ensuring the safety and security of your teams. Some general takeaways as you plan for your logistical considerations in the field is that things generally don't go as planned. As much as possible, try to plan for a plan B, as well as plan C, and a plan D so on, so forth. There's a lot of affectors that you can't control: weather, safety, et cetera. Try to leave as much flexibility as possible from the beginning. Related to that, leave a margin in your budget to make sure that last-minute needs can be addressed. As I've hammered home in this lecture, a lot of things can happen that you weren't planning for. Leave both enough money as well as enough time to make sure that you can still collect high-quality data even though things take longer and might cost more than originally planned. That sums up the logistical considerations that you want to plan for, for your field data collection.
