Current and former professional staff of the Population Council have updated the Handbook for Family Planning Operations Research Design. They assume that readers of the handbook already know terms and concepts of research design and statistics and have some field research experience. The primary objective of the manual is to provide guidance to health and family planning researchers to develop and write and detailed operations research proposal. In fact, it can be and has been used in workshops on research proposal writing. It also serves as a means for program administrators and managers to understand the workings of operations research and the application of research findings for improving service delivery. The authors draw from their field experiences from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The handbook begins with a definition of operations research, its objectives, different types of operations research, and its desing. It guides readers on how to identify, define, and justify the research problem. Further it helps them to choose a strategy to solve the problem. I next covers objectives and hypotheses of the research. The handbook makes the readers aware of the need to describe the proposed intervention and to define variables and terms. It spends a considerable number of pages on study design including the different types of designs. It also provides guidance on sampling and data collection. The handbook gives detailed guidance on data tabulation and analysis. It also stresses the need to disseminate and use the research findings. It encourages researchers to list limitations of the study, resources, and facilities. It also addresses the preparation of appendixes, title page, and abstract.

This volume, by graduate researchers working in urban agriculture, examines concrete strategies to integrate city farming into the urban landscape. Drawing on original field work in cities across the rapidly urbanizing global south, the book examines the contribution of urban agriculture and city farming to livelihoods and food security. Case studies cover food production diversification for robust and secure food provision; the socio-economic and agronomic aspects of urban composting; urban agriculture as a viable livelihood strategy; strategies for integrating city farming into urban landscapes; and the complex social-ecological networks of urban agriculture. Other case studies look at public health aspects including the impact of pesticides, micro-biological risks, pollution and water contamination on food production and people. Ultimately the book calls on city farmers, politicians, environmentalists and regulatory bodies to work together to improve the long term sustainability of urban farming as a major, secure source of food and employment for urban populations. Published with IDRC

"This handbook brings together evaluation approaches relevant across the program life cycle, starting from program design, to implementation, and ultimately to the scaling up of successful interventions. It fills a gap in available publications, which are predominantly focused on impact evaluations and inadequately grounded in methods that can address why programs succeed or fail as well as their potential to contribute to broader and more systemic change. This chapter starts by setting the context and describes key questions relevant to each stage of the program lifecycle. The second section highlights four cross-cutting consideration that social programs today must confront including: (1) ensuring culturally responsive and equitable evaluations, (2) the decolonization of evaluation practices, (3) adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health crises, and (4) understanding the impact of climate change on social programs. The last section describes how this handbook can be used and highlights relevant evaluation topics and case studies covered in each section of the handbook"--

The Handbook of Methodological Approaches to Community-Based Research is intended to aid the community-oriented researcher in learning about and applying cutting-edge quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches.

Emphasizing practical considerations in designing and carrying out primary health care programs, this is a superb introductory text for public health students. It will be of particular interest to those working with rural populations in developing countries with limited resources. Part I covers policy issues and the conceptual framework for planning, management and evaluation. Part II reviews essential methods for effective implementation, considering the economic, political, epidemiologic, demographic and other components that contribute to the assessment of health needs and resource allocation. Part III discusses specific tools and techniques in program management related to decision analysis, network analysis, survey techniques, cost-effectiveness appraisal, and much more. Comprehensive and informative, this highly practical work is the result of many years of experience in teaching and working with health care planners from around the world.