Assessing the Vriddhi Project

Strong public health programming depends on the ability to measure progress to know if a course correction is needed, and to gain insight about the impact achieved.

Last summer, JSI conducted a mixed-methods assessment of a component of the USAID-supported, Scaling Up Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health Interventions, or “Vriddhi” project. The intervention, implemented in one block in each of the states of Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, focused on providing immediate care to sick newborns and young infants and trained auxiliary nurse midwives at the community level to inject the antibiotic gentamicin. JSI’s research team conducted knowledge assessment tests, focus group discussions, and stakeholder interviews with the goal of collecting evidence that will inform recommendations to support the Government of India to scale up the intervention in other states.

Watch a short video on our work, shot and edited by Prachi Pundir, a researcher on the assessment team.