Getting started: for the SNT team
This section is for members of the Subnational Tailoring (SNT) team who are leading or closely engaged with data-driven analysis. It outlines the SNT team’s responsibilities in the SNT analysis process, how to engage effectively with analysts, and key areas to supervise during the analysis lifecycle. See WHO’s SNT Manual and AHADI’s template terms of reference for the SNT team for more details on the composition, roles, and responsibilities of the SNT team, including aspects beyond the analytical portion of SNT.
Overview
This page is the entry point for SNT team members. It describes the responsibilities the SNT team retains during analysis, how to engage the analysis team, the analysis decisions that require SNT team input, and the data and methodological choices that fall under SNT team validation.
- Clarify the SNT team’s responsibilities across the analysis lifecycle.
- Outline how to recruit, brief, and supervise an analysis team.
- Provide a checklist of analysis items that require SNT team review.
- Surface common pitfalls, data-governance considerations, and cross-references to related pages.
Recruiting an Analysis Team
See Annex 1 — Terms of reference for the SNT team lead in WHO’s SNT Manual for WHO’s recommended composition and responsibilities of the SNT analysis team. AHADI also provides recommendations on SNT analyst competencies.
Multiple skill sets are required for SNT analysis. Usually these skills do not exist all in the same individual, and multiple analysts are needed to carry out all the analysis tasks of SNT. Some or all of these skills may exist already in the national malaria program (NMP). If an external analysis team will be recruited to support the SNT process, it should complement existing capacities in the NMP such that the recruited team should together possess all the technical capacities needed.
The minimum set of skills required for a full SNT analysis exercise generally include:
- Data collection and management: assembling, cleaning, harmonizing, and documenting data from multiple sources (routine surveillance data, campaigns data, household surveys, shapefiles, etc.)
- Data visualization: producing clear maps, plots, and tables that support comparison across administrative units, time, and indicators
- Basic descriptive and statistical analysis: computing indicators, coverage estimates, trends, and impact evaluations
- Geostatistical analysis: producing or interpreting model-based geostatistical estimates of indicators
- Mathematical modeling: predicting epidemiological impact of candidate intervention scenarios
- Costing and health economics: producing unit costs from budgets or historical spending data to estimate costs and cost-effectiveness of candidate intervention scenarios
AHADI’s SNT Roadmap Template provides a detailed breakdown of analytical skills needed for each step of the SNT analysis.
Whether internal or external, analysts should be familiar with SNT concepts, understand what analyses to conduct, and be ready to take instruction from the SNT team.
Working with the Analysis Team
As the national governing body of the SNT process, the SNT team is responsible for ensuring data and methods are appropriate and that results are valid. The SNT team must take a strong supervisory role over the analysis team and ensure that the analysis remains aligned with national objectives. The SNT team must feel comfortable asking the analysis team for explanations, requesting changes, and making decisions on validity and use of analysis results.
The SNT team should request that analysts keep good records of their work. This may include storing all analytical process and results details through a growing PowerPoint slide deck (or other living document), which is shared with the SNT team at each update. The living document should also include records of discussions with the SNT team and their conclusions, such that the complete record of analysis exists in a single place. This record, while extensive, should explain in a clear and logical way what was done, what was decided, and why. Analysts should also keep minutes of SNT team discussions pertaining to their work and disseminate minutes after meetings along with clear action items and assignees.
The SNT team should invite experts to meetings when their areas of expertise are being discussed (for example, invite entomologists when vector control and entomological data are reviewed and presented), so that the analysis outputs are as validated and appropriate for decision-making as possible.
Roles and Responsibilities
The table below summarizes how responsibilities are typically split between the SNT team and the analysis team. Roles may be adapted to the country context, but decision-making authority always sits with the SNT team.
| Activity | SNT team | Analysis team |
|---|---|---|
| Set analysis aims and key questions | Decides | Advises |
| Analysis plan | Approves | Drafts |
| Identify and approve data sources | Decides | Reviews and flags issues |
| Extract and share raw data | Coordinates | Receives and processes |
| Analytical methods | Guides and validates | Proposes and executes |
| Analytical products | Validates and uses | Generates and explains |
| Translate evidence into program decisions | Decides | Supports interpretation |
| Document the analysis | Reviews and archives | Leads |
Checklist of Analysis Items for the SNT Team’s Review
See Annex 2 — Proposed data checklist in WHO’s SNT Manual and AHADI’s SNT Roadmap Template for data checklists for SNT.
The questions that the SNT team should ask of their analysts vary for each step of the SNT process. At any given step in the analysis, the SNT team generally provides guidance, facilitates data access and proper interpretation, validates outputs, and translates evidence generated in the course of the SNT exercise into decisions:
- Guidance: SNT team should expect to review and validate the analysis plan or proposed approach, and provide key decisions that determine the course of analysis
- Data source: SNT team should expect to facilitate sharing of a validated and approved dataset with the analysis team
- Consultation: SNT team should expect the analysis team to have detailed questions for the SNT team
- Validation: SNT team should expect to review and discuss analytical outputs regularly and validate the results for decision-making
- Translation: SNT team should expect to make decisions based on the evidence generated through the SNT process
The different steps of the analysis process included in this library include specific questions or areas of review that the SNT team should expect to be raised during the SNT process. These should be taken as a starting point, not as a comprehensive list of what needs to be discussed with the SNT team. The list below provides a summary of these considerations:
This list is partial and items will be added as more pages of the code library are completed.
Operational Unit for Decision-Making
Before any analysis begins, the SNT team must agree on the operational unit and the official source of admin unit names. The table below lists the specific decisions and inputs expected at this stage.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Operational unit | Decide on the operational unit for decision-making before any analysis begins. |
| Guidance | Admin source of truth | Indicate which source (shapefile, master facility list, DHIS2, etc.) is the official version of admin unit names. |
| Data source | Official shapefile | Ensure the analysis team uses official national shapefiles at this operational unit level and larger. |
| Consultation | Shapefile issues | Provide guidance on how to resolve overlapping admin units, inexact duplicates made for planning, or other shapefile problems. |
| Validation | Visualized shapefiles | Review and validate visualized shapefiles at the beginning of SNT. |
Health Facility Lists
The SNT team should guide local naming conventions, resolve facility-list discrepancies, and validate the method used to define facility activity status.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Naming conventions | Provide guidance on local naming conventions and abbreviations used for health facility names. |
| Guidance | Facility list reconciliation | Resolve differences in facility names between the master health facility list and the routine surveillance database, including fuzzy-match validation, admin unit reassignment, and facilities appearing in only one list. |
| Consultation | Coordinates issues | Resolve issues such as facility coordinates with missing names, duplicate names with different coordinates, or coordinates outside admin unit boundaries. |
| Consultation | Facility activity status | Discuss and validate the method used to define facility activity status, such as a master facility list approach vs reporting-based definitions. |
Routine Epidemiological Surveillance Data
Preparing routine data for analysis
The SNT team’s responsibilities for routine data preparation include: sharing a clean extraction, guiding the analysis team’s calculation choices, and consulting on real-world data practice.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | DHIS2 extraction | The NMP data manager or HMIS representative should share a valid extraction of routine surveillance data with the analysis team, together with a data dictionary. |
| Guidance | Variable definitions | Work with the HMIS focal person to clarify data element names and definitions (admissions vs outpatients, pregnant women vs adults, RDT vs microscopy double counting, private sector inclusion, CHW data placement, variable changes across years, etc.). |
| Consultation | Data practice context | Explain reporting realities to the analysis team: sentinel facilities for malaria deaths, ANC/IPTp dose vs gestational age reporting, zero-vs-blank entry practice, and changes in these practices over time. |
| Guidance | Summing data elements | Confirm which DHIS2 data elements should be summed to obtain the correct total, and how to handle pre-computed totals that disagree with the sum. |
| Guidance | Presumed cases | Indicate which calculation method is appropriate when the presumed cases variable is not already included. |
| Guidance | Duplicate records | Provide a rule for resolving duplicate facility-month records with conflicting data before analysis can proceed. |
| Guidance | Facility type rules | Declare which facility types are inpatient vs outpatient and which indicators each type is expected to report. |
Quality control of routine data
Outlier handling, coherency checks, and imputation must all be discussed with the SNT team before being applied.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation | Individual outliers | Investigate individual outliers together with a focal person, reaching out to district focal people where needed, before outliers are removed or corrected. |
| Validation | Outlier detection method | Review outlier detection results and select the method (if any) most likely to identify true outliers; guide the analysis team if no method performs well. |
| Consultation | Case management practice | Explain clinical case management and referral practices so that relevant coherency checks can be identified; flag practice changes during the analysis period so irrelevant years can be excluded. |
| Validation | Coherency assessment results | Discuss coherency assessment results to ensure conclusions align with practical experience. |
| Translation | Incoherent records follow-up | Receive tables of incoherent records by facility-month for follow-up with relevant focal points. |
| Guidance | Outlier correction and imputation | Confirm which method, if any, should be used to correct outliers and impute missing data, after the analysis team presents the extent, nature, and impact of the proposed correction. |
| Translation | Surveillance integration plan | Ensure there is a plan to feed corrections back to the core surveillance focal points and minimize future database issues. |
Routine data reporting rates
Reporting-rate calculations depend on facility-status definitions and on which facilities are expected to report each indicator.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Active/inactive status | If no database tracks monthly activity status of health facilities, provide a rule (for example, 6 months of non-reporting marks a facility inactive) for determining facility status. |
| Consultation | Expected reporters per indicator | Be consulted on which facility types are expected to report each indicator (for example, excluding outpatient clinics from hospital-admissions reporting rates). |
| Guidance | Weighted vs unweighted rates | Indicate whether weighted or unweighted reporting rates should be used to estimate unreported cases; both may be prepared for side-by-side review. |
Household Survey Data (DHS/MIS)
Survey choices touch source, indicator definitions, statistical power, and validation against programmatic knowledge.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | Survey rounds and admin level | Confirm which years of which surveys (DHS, MIS, MICS, or national equivalents) will be used, at what admin level, and whether to use survey microdata directly or published indicator estimates. |
| Guidance | Indicator definitions | Confirm which definition is appropriate when indicators have multiple plausible specifications (ITN access, ITN use the previous night, IPTp doses received, care-seeking for fever, effective treatment of malaria). |
| Consultation | Precision and small-area estimates | Be consulted on acceptable precision (confidence intervals, design effects) and on whether modeled small-area estimates are appropriate for use. |
| Validation | Survey-derived indicators | Review survey-derived indicators alongside any modeled estimates and validate that the numbers are consistent with local knowledge. |
Population Denominators
Population sources, including any growth parameters, must come from datasets the SNT team has approved.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | Official population data | Designate the official population dataset to be used in analysis. |
| Guidance | Estimated population data | Approve any estimated population sources (such as WorldPop) and validate them against known local population patterns before they are used (for example, to estimate the population beyond 5km from the nearest facility or to generate population-weighted raster averages). |
| Data source | Growth rates | Source and approve any population growth parameters if growth rates are to be applied. |
Climate Data
Climate data choices depend on whether national or global sources are used, and both require validation.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | Climate data source | Decide whether to use national meteorological or weather-station data, or global sources; facilitate access and clarifications when national data are used. |
| Validation | Climate data validation | Review and validate climate data before use in later analyses, comparing global rasters against locally available meteorological data where possible. |
Intervention Campaign Data
Campaign data require explicit source decisions, denominator choices for coverage, and cross-checks against household survey estimates.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | Authoritative source | Identify authoritative source(s) for campaign and routine intervention administration or coverage data (ITN distribution, SMC, IRS, IPTp, vaccination); decide which is authoritative when multiple sources exist. |
| Guidance | Coverage denominator | Confirm which denominator to use (target population, eligible population, planned doses) and ensure it is applied consistently across years and admin units. |
| Consultation | Data quality | Advise on handling over-reporting from campaigns, missing post-campaign surveys, and discrepancies between administrative and survey-based coverage. |
| Validation | Coverage cross-checks | Cross-check administrative against survey coverage and validate decisions on data source to use when estimates disagree. |
Estimating Care-Seeking Rate
Care-seeking estimation involves source-of-care decisions, denominator choices, interpolation between surveys, and validation against local knowledge.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Sources of care | Inform the analysis team which public and private sources of care to include when considering where patients may obtain effective treatment for malaria, since definitions vary by country. |
| Guidance | Denominator definition | Provide guidance on which denominator to use (all recent fevers, or only fevers that were RDT-positive at the time of the survey); both can be prepared for side-by-side review. |
| Guidance | Interpolation method | Specify a preferred interpolation method for years without surveys. |
| Validation | Care-seeking maps | Review output maps to ensure care-seeking estimates align with local realities, and guide the analysis team on how to proceed where results look unrealistic. |
Mortality Data
The mortality data choice has high downstream impact and must be deliberately selected and validated.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Mortality data source | Decide, after reviewing all options, which source of malaria mortality or proxy mortality to use for decision-making (under-5 all-cause mortality from surveys or rasters, malaria mortality from routine data, or another source). |
| Consultation | Continuous mortality thresholds | Set thresholds for continuous mortality indicators with the analysis team. |
| Validation | Geospatial mortality estimates | If using, validate geospatial mortality estimates before any subsequent analysis, comparing against other national mortality sources where possible. |
When Working with Estimates from Geospatial Models
The SNT team decides whether to use modeled estimates, must understand the modeling approach, and must validate all geospatial outputs before they are used downstream.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | Source of modeled estimates | Decide whether to use modeled estimates for an indicator (for example, parasite prevalence) and whether estimates will be generated in-house or sourced from pre-existing databases. |
| Consultation | Modeling approach briefing | Expect to be briefed on the modeling approach (covariates, data sources, key assumptions); inform the approach when estimates are generated by the analysis team. |
| Validation | Geospatial outputs | Review and validate all geospatial outputs, whether pre-existing or analysis-team-generated, before they are used in subsequent analyses. |
Stratification Methodology Choices
Stratification requires explicit decisions on indicators, combination methods, thresholds, and validation of the final maps.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Thresholds | Set thresholds that translate continuous indicators into strata categories after reviewing the empirical distribution and the analysis team's candidate options. |
| Consultation | Indicator conflicts | Decide which indicator takes precedence when indicators conflict (for example, high incidence but low prevalence) and provide the rationale. |
| Guidance | Indicators and combination rule | Decide which indicators to use for decision-making, whether multiple indicators should be combined (for example to create a single indicator of malaria burden from prevalence, incidence, and mortality), and if so, how (composite score, decision tree, classification rules). |
| Validation | Final stratification maps | Validate the final stratification maps for decision-making, including with district-level stakeholders where appropriate. |
Presenting Results
Results must support downstream decision-making, with mapping thresholds and presentation tuned by indicator and purpose.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Presentation review | Ensure analysis results (maps, plots, tables) clearly present all information needed for decision-making, and give feedback to improve presentation where needed. |
| Guidance | Mapping thresholds | Inform the analysis team which thresholds (bins) are appropriate when mapping quantitative data, recognizing that a single indicator may need different thresholds for different purposes. |
Intervention Targeting Decisions
Targeting brings together programmatic feasibility, modeled impact, and operational realities, and culminates in SNT team-approved targeting maps.
| Type | Topic | What the SNT team should do |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance | Intervention eligibility | For each intervention of interest, define criteria for eligibility. |
| Guidance | Targeting adjustments | Adjust intervention targeting logic to account for operational feasibility (for example, an intervention that is unfeasible in remote areas), equity, or other factors that are not already captured in stratification maps. |
| Translation | Decision-making | Use subnationally-tailored intervention targeting in national strategic plans, funding applications, advocacy, operational plans, etc. |
The master checklist aggregates every row from the per-section tables above so the SNT team can carry a single artefact into working sessions and tick decisions off as they are made.
| Stage | Type | Topic | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operational unit | Guidance | Operational unit | Decide on the operational unit for decision-making. |
| Operational unit | Guidance | Admin source of truth | Indicate which source is the official version of admin unit names. |
| Operational unit | Data source | Official shapefile | Use official national shapefiles at the operational unit level and larger. |
| Operational unit | Consultation | Shapefile issues | Guide resolution of overlapping admin units, duplicates, or other problems. |
| Operational unit | Validation | Visualized shapefiles | Review and validate visualized shapefiles at the start of SNT. |
| Health facility lists | Guidance | Naming conventions | Provide local naming conventions and abbreviations. |
| Health facility lists | Guidance | Facility-list reconciliation | Resolve differences between master facility list and routine surveillance database. |
| Health facility lists | Consultation | Coordinates issues | Be consulted on missing or out-of-boundary facility coordinates. |
| Health facility lists | Consultation | Facility activity status | Discuss and validate the facility activity-status method. |
| Routine data: preparation | Data source | DHIS2 extraction | Share a valid extraction with a data dictionary. |
| Routine data: preparation | Guidance | Variable definitions | Clarify data element names and definitions with the HMIS focal person. |
| Routine data: preparation | Consultation | Data practice context | Explain sentinel facilities, ANC/IPTp reporting, zero-vs-blank practice. |
| Routine data: preparation | Guidance | Summing data elements | Confirm which elements sum to the correct total. |
| Routine data: preparation | Guidance | Presumed cases | Choose a calculation method when the column is missing. |
| Routine data: preparation | Guidance | Duplicate records | Provide a rule for resolving duplicate facility–month records. |
| Routine data: preparation | Guidance | Facility type rules | Declare inpatient vs outpatient reporting expectations. |
| Routine data: quality control | Consultation | Individual outliers | Investigate individual outliers with district focal points. |
| Routine data: quality control | Validation | Outlier detection method | Select the outlier detection method most likely to identify true outliers. |
| Routine data: quality control | Consultation | Case management practice | Explain case management and referral practices and flag changes over time. |
| Routine data: quality control | Validation | Coherency-check results | Discuss coherency-check results against program practice. |
| Routine data: quality control | Translation | Incoherent records follow-up | Receive tables of incoherent records for follow-up. |
| Routine data: quality control | Guidance | Outlier correction and imputation | Confirm correction and imputation methods after reviewing impact. |
| Routine data: quality control | Translation | Surveillance integration plan | Ensure corrections feed back into the surveillance database. |
| Routine data: reporting rates | Guidance | Active/inactive status | Provide a rule for determining active/inactive facility status. |
| Routine data: reporting rates | Consultation | Expected reporters per indicator | Advise on which facility types are expected to report each indicator. |
| Routine data: reporting rates | Guidance | Weighted vs unweighted rates | Indicate whether weighted or unweighted reporting rates should be used. |
| Household surveys | Data source | Survey rounds and admin level | Confirm rounds, admin level, and microdata vs published estimates. |
| Household surveys | Guidance | Indicator definitions | Choose the appropriate definition when multiple plausible specifications exist. |
| Household surveys | Consultation | Precision and small-area estimates | Discuss acceptable precision and modeled small-area estimates. |
| Household surveys | Validation | Survey-derived indicators | Validate survey-derived indicators against programmatic knowledge. |
| Population denominators | Data source | Official population data | Designate the official population dataset. |
| Population denominators | Guidance | Estimated population data | Approve and validate estimated population sources before use. |
| Population denominators | Data source | Growth rates | Source and approve any population growth parameters. |
| Climate data | Data source | Climate data source | Decide between national meteorological and global sources. |
| Climate data | Validation | Climate data validation | Review and validate climate data before use. |
| Intervention coverage | Data source | Authoritative coverage source | Identify authoritative campaign and routine coverage sources. |
| Intervention coverage | Guidance | Coverage denominator | Confirm which denominator to use and ensure consistent application. |
| Intervention coverage | Consultation | Coverage data quality | Advise on over-reporting, missing surveys, and source discrepancies. |
| Intervention coverage | Validation | Coverage cross-checks | Validate source-prioritization decisions when estimates disagree. |
| Treatment-seeking | Guidance | Sources of care | Inform which public and private sources of care to include. |
| Treatment-seeking | Guidance | Denominator definition | Decide between all recent fevers and RDT-positive fevers as denominator. |
| Treatment-seeking | Guidance | Interpolation method | Specify a preferred interpolation method for years without surveys. |
| Treatment-seeking | Validation | Care-seeking maps | Review output maps against local realities. |
| Mortality data | Guidance | Mortality data source | Decide which source of mortality or proxy mortality to use. |
| Mortality data | Consultation | Continuous mortality thresholds | Discuss thresholds for continuous mortality indicators. |
| Mortality data | Validation | Geospatial mortality estimates | Validate geospatial mortality estimates against national sources. |
| Geospatial models | Data source | Source of modeled estimates | Decide whether to use modeled estimates and where they come from. |
| Geospatial models | Consultation | Modeling approach briefing | Expect to be briefed on covariates, data sources, and assumptions. |
| Geospatial models | Validation | Geospatial outputs | Validate all geospatial outputs before downstream use. |
| Stratification | Guidance | Thresholds | Set thresholds for translating continuous indicators into strata. |
| Stratification | Consultation | Indicator conflicts | Decide which indicator takes precedence when indicators conflict. |
| Stratification | Guidance | Indicators and combination rule | Decide which indicators to use and how to combine them. |
| Stratification | Validation | Final stratification maps | Validate the final stratification maps with stakeholders. |
| Presenting results | Guidance | Presentation review | Ensure results clearly present all information needed for decision-making. |
| Presenting results | Guidance | Mapping thresholds | Inform which thresholds (bins) are appropriate for mapping quantitative data. |
| Intervention targeting | Guidance | Intervention eligibility | Define criteria for eligibility per intervention. |
| Intervention targeting | Guidance | Targeting adjustments | Adjust targeting logic for operational feasibility and equity factors. |
| Intervention targeting | Translation | Decision-making | Use SNT-tailored targeting in NSPs, funding applications, advocacy, and operational plans. |
This checklist is meant to help the SNT team engage with analysis, not replace deep thinking. Always consider what’s appropriate for the context and don’t hesitate to push for improvements.
Data Sharing, Governance, and Ethics
See the guidance on data governance and country ownership in WHO’s SNT Manual for the principles that underpin data sharing between the SNT team and analysts.
The SNT team is the custodian of the data shared with the analysis team. Clear governance arrangements protect data subjects, ensure that data are used only for agreed purposes, and reduce the risk of leakage or misuse.
- Data-sharing agreements: every transfer of routine surveillance, survey microdata, or facility-level records should be governed by a written data-sharing agreement that specifies allowed uses, retention period, sub-licensing rules, and the procedure for deletion at the end of the engagement.
- Personally identifiable information: household survey microdata and any line-list health records may contain identifiers or near-identifiers. The SNT team should confirm that data have been de-identified before sharing, or that the analysis team operates within appropriate safeguards.
- Ethics and approvals: when analysis goes beyond programmatic use (for example, publication or secondary research), the SNT team should confirm that an ethics review is in place.
- Storage and access: the SNT team should agree with the analysis team on where data are stored, who can access them, and how access is revoked when team members leave.
- Acknowledgement and attribution: the SNT team should set expectations on how the data source is acknowledged in outputs and on co-authorship for any publications.
Potential Pitfalls
- Omitting to ensure the appropriate experts are engaged at the right time such that their participation in the analysis process results in the incorporation of their expertise into data use and decision-making
- Approving outputs without examining how indicators were defined, what denominators were used, and which records were excluded
- Allowing outlier correction, imputation, or modeling choices to be made without explicit SNT team sign-off
- Comparing maps or estimates across years without confirming that admin boundaries, facility lists, and indicator definitions are consistent
- Combining administrative coverage and survey coverage in the same plot without flagging the difference in source
- Underestimating the time required for data assembly, quality review, and validation workshops
- Losing the audit trail. The living document, minutes, and decision log should remain current throughout the analysis.