Denominators Team - Scope of Work

Rationale:

PEPFAR operating units (OUs) are required to geo-prioritize resources to optimize PEPFAR’s impact by focusing efforts on prioritized subnational units (PSNUs) and prioritized age/sex bands and key populations. OUs are also required to track progress towards meeting global HIV program coverage goals (e.g. 90-90-90; 90% of all people living with HIV (PLHIV) know their HIV status, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, 90% percent of all people receiving ART have viral suppression) in targeted PSNUs by five year age/sex bands (ie. <1 M/F, 1-4 M/F, 5-9 M/F, 10-14 M/F, 15-19 M/F… 45-49 M/F, 50+ M/F). Both the micro-targeting and monitoring of PEPFAR-supported programs place increased importance on the availability of reliable, granular epidemiological data and estimates about PLHIV, new HIV infections and priority age/sex bands and key populations. In many cases, novel and/or innovative methods (e.g. modeling and machine learning) are needed to meet these data needs.

Objectives:

Harmonizing accessibility:

To provide leadership in the development of a transparent, appropriate and shareable platform for tools and estimates where analysts, countries and decision makers can easily gain new insights into PEPFAR data using state of the art analytic tools and access important data in time to impact program planning and monitoring and with lowest possible level of effort (LOE). This objective is supported by the following goals:

• Enhance data accessibility at the time of decision making.
• Enhance data accessibility to stakeholders.
• Enhance data accessibility as both a WIP (work in progress) and final product.
• Enhance data accessibility from multiple sources.
• Enhance documentation and transparency of methodology for estimation of both WIP and final product data.
• Streamline processes for selecting appropriate platform for data and tools.

Platform for sharing and developing forward thinking methodologies:

1. To provide a platform to connect different programmatic ICPI clusters and external stakeholders (field teams, epidemic control teams (ECTs), ST3 (short term task teams) and implementing agency and OGAC leadership to explore possibilities of collaboration and improvements to existing methodologies,
2. To provide a convening platform for forward thinking methodologies; and
3. To pro-actively work on innovative and rigorous methodologies, targeting general population, priority population, key populations at sub-national levels and finer age and sex bands.

These objectives are supported by the following goals:

• Connect different clusters and external stakeholders where appropriate to ensure timely sharing of estimates, methods, data and tools.
• Connect PEPFAR OUs to tools and methods developed by clusters and technical workgroups.
• Explore cutting edge methodologies (including but not limited to machine learning, dynamic modeling, network analysis) to develop epidemiological data and estimates for general population, key populations and priority populations—at subnational levels (where applicable) and finer age and sex bands (where applicable).
• Develop prototypes for innovative methods to share with the stakeholders and iteratively convert successful prototypes into products.
• Develop training materials and other resources to allow analysts in program clusters, monitoring and evaluation teams at agencies, and field teams to incorporate products into routine work when possible.