At the Data Interpretation, Further Analysis and Dissemination (DIFAD) workshop, participants reviewed the results of their MICS surveys with the global MICS team. Through presentations, discussions and group work with facilitators, representatives of national statistical offices, various government ministries and UNICEF staff worked on preparing reports to officially release survey results for their countries.
In addition, country participants shared their previous experiences of analysis done using MICS data and also planned for new and emerging topics for analysis. Ms. Kanda Sutthanunt, from UNICEF Thailand, shared that data from the previous round of MICS were instrumental for the Royal Thai government to recognize malnutrition as a problem for children under-five. MICS stimulated introspection by the national Ministry of Public Health and comparison of MICS data with other sources of data. Due to these results, the Ministry of Public Health developed a plan of action to improve the nutritional status of children in the country. In addition to the programmatic change, MICS also influenced the national authorities to use the standard WHO child growth standard population for computing the nutritional status of children.
The DIFAD workshop also exposed participants to a range of different means to disseminate statistical data. This is an essential step to ensure that complex statistics can be made reachable and appealing to wider audiences such as policy makers and media. Countries at the workshop shared their ideas on how to strategically disseminate MICS findings and also displayed materials used in past MICS dissemination campaigns.
This DIFAD workshop marks the end of the workshops for MICS5. In Fall of 2016, a new round of survey design workshops will usher in the next round of surveys for MICS6. The agenda and list of participants can be accessed here.