Surfacing Valuable Information
How do policymakers, local leaders, or community members make decisions when data that supports public health is unreliable, difficult to use, or does not exist? When resources are scarce or data is not actionable, making decisions for public health is challenging.
Supporting Public Health
We work with communities and policymakers to identify gaps, encourage greater data use, and train healthcare workers and decision-makers. Through visual tools, data landscaping, and guidance on data use, DG helps communities see how and where investments in data, tools, or interventions can support public health.
Focusing on Outcomes
Our partnerships in health programming help to highlight patterns and gaps to identify underlying factors that are important to improved health outcomes.
Data for Health Systems
Many community health systems are under-resourced, with overworked clinic staff that rely on health officials to allocate limited funding to vulnerable populations. We work with partners to implement cost-effective, sustainable systems that can assist with workload, support useful data reporting, and surface patterns to strengthen healthcare delivery.
Informing Policymakers
When data is unavailable or unreliable, policymakers are less able to make informed decisions in the best interest of the public. We work to fill the data gaps by building systems that present data for easy analysis and resource allocation.
Building Data Visualizations
Built through a collaborative process, DG’s health data visualization tools often focus on the most vulnerable — women and children, adolescents, and newborns — to help advocates, policymakers, and community members better understand and show others where interventions and investments could make a difference.
Highlights
The Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI)
The Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) was launched in 2019 and is implemented by Development Gateway: An IREX Venture, in partnership with the University of Cape Town’s Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products and funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. TCDI aims to supply governments, civil society, and academia with improved access to country-specific data that will inform better tobacco control policy design and implementation. The program has built national websites that present data from different sources, including primary data collected through TCDI and existing secondary data made publicly available and papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
Data on Youth and Tobacco in Africa (DaYTA)
Through our Data on Youth and Tobacco in Africa (DaYTA) program, DG seeks to advance tobacco control efforts by gathering accurate data on tobacco use among 10- to 17-year-olds in Kenya, Nigeria, and the DRC. In collaboration with partners in governments, civil society, and academia, the DaYTA program will empower decision-makers to make timely, data-driven policies that, in turn, can lead to a healthier populace.
PREMAND: Preventing Maternal and Neonatal Deaths in Northern Ghana
The PREMAND dashboard highlights interactions of social, cultural, and geographic factors in contributing to maternal and neonatal health outcomes. The flexible tool serves a range of users: from district health policymakers to local community leaders. It translates highly technical research data into an easily-understandable map, to make this information approachable and usable by decision-makers at all levels.
Read the Latest
New Research Manuscript on Mortality from Tobacco Use in Kenya
DG is excited to announce the publication of a research manuscript on Mortality from Tobacco Use in Kenya in Tobacco-Induced Diseases. This research was carried out as part of the Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI).
Healthy Farming, Healthy Planet: The Environmental Case Against Tobacco Farming
While all agriculture has an environmental impact, tobacco is unique in that every stage of the tobacco lifecycle–from the production and consumption of tobacco to farming and disposal of the final product–wreaks havoc on the environment. In this piece, we’ll introduce the lifecycle of producing and using tobacco and explore the requisite environmental impact.
Stakeholder, Where Art Thou?: Three Insights on Using Governance Structures to Foster Stakeholder Engagement
Through our Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) program and its sister program Data on Youth and Tobacco in Africa (DaYTA), we have learned that creating governance structures, such as advisory boards or steering committees, is one approach to ensuring that digital solutions appropriately meet stakeholders’ needs and foster future stakeholder engagement. In this blog, we explore three insights on how governance structures can advance buy-in with individual stakeholders while connecting them to one another.