In How to Create a Gender-Responsive Pandemic Plan, the Gender and COVID-19 Project propose a framework that readers can employ to outline outcomes, activities, and indicators for each of their objectives related to pandemic preparedness, response, and recovery. The brief emphasizes the importance of the ethical and safe collection and analysis of intersectional, disaggregated data in highlighting the differential impacts of pandemics across groups.
The Project presents a non-exhaustive, illustrative list of indicators that can be employed for each of the priority areas highlighted in the brief: gender-based violence (GBV); mental health; sexual and reproductive health services; economic and work related concerns; education; and inclusive decision-making.
As measures that can be used to capture and reflect information, attributes and dimensions, indicators can serve many purposes including describing, monitoring, and evaluating status, scale, performance, impact and change. They vary in complexity and can be generated from basic counts, composite measures, proxies and qualitative data (i.e., perceptions). Many of the indicators herein were sourced from among the references listed in this document; the groups of interest included in some of these were expanded to include other vulnerable populations (e.g. Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) adults and children). Other indicators were developed by the project based on the needs and activities highlighted in the brief.
In keeping with the overarching themes of public health and gender equity, the indicators listed under each priority area are primarily grouped according to two thematic sections: dimensions of health and health care and gender analysis domains. Readers should bear in mind that any given indicator can fall under multiple themes. For example, the indicator ‘percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel’ could be related to a question of human resources for health – does the health system have sufficient trained personnel? Or it could be a question of access – are skilled health personnel available to particular populations (e.g. rural versus urban)? It could also be a question of care seeking – do populations intend to access these skilled health providers?
There are many different approaches that can be used to group indicators and the choice depends largely on the type of analysis individual readers wish to undertake. The presentation of sub-groups in this document is intended to illustrate a few of the many options available to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.
Download the brief, Measuring gender responsive pandemic planning
