Use of routine health data to monitor malaria intervention effectiveness: a scoping review.

The expansive scale-up of malaria interventions has contributed to substantial reductions in malaria morbidity and mortality in the past 15-20 years. The effectiveness of these interventions has traditionally been estimated through research studies and trials, nationally representative surveys, and mathematical modelling. Because of their sheer volume across space and time, programmatic data collected and reported routinely through health management information systems (HMIS) can complement and even offer an alternative to nationally representative and other ad hoc surveys to assess health intervention effectiveness, and ultimately impact on health outcomes. The objective of this scoping review was to describe the different analytical approaches for estimating the impact and effectiveness of malaria interventions using routine HMIS and surveillance data. We examined PubMed using combination searches of the following terms: "malaria" AND "intervention" AND "effect*" OR "impact" AND "system" OR "surveillance". We limited inclusion to studies and analyses that were conducted in the past decade. We purposefully chose this time cut-off, as that is when countries routine HMIS began to substantially mature, with data reported by these systems progressively becoming more robust. Out of 957 records generated from the PubMed search, following title and abstract screening, 93 were included for full-text review, with 49 records ultimately meeting the inclusion criteria and being included in the scoping review. We summarize included studies by publication year, geography, outcome variables, target populations, interventions assessed, HMIS data platform used--we show that analytical approaches used a range of modelling and non-modelling approaches to assess intervention effectiveness. This scoping review shows that routine HMIS data can also be used to regularly assess the effectiveness of various malaria interventions--an important exercise to ensure that implemented malaria interventions continue to be effective, have the desired effect, and ultimately help countries progress towards their national strategic goals and targets. Strengths and Limitations of this Study{blacktriangleright} This scoping review describes the different analytical approaches for estimating the impact and effectiveness of malaria interventions using routine health management information system (HMIS) and surveillance data. {blacktriangleright}A range of analytical approaches to assess malaria intervention effectiveness using routine HMIS and surveillance data were identified in the records (studies) reviewed, which broadly can be categorized into modelling and non-modelling approaches. {blacktriangleright}Limitations lie in the inclusion criteria and main literature database used for the review: some papers and grey literature may not have been included, as well as papers in languages other than English may have been missed. Article Summary LineMonitoring malaria intervention effectiveness