BASELINE SURVEY FOR MATERNAL, NEONATAL AND CHILD HEALTH PROJECT
About DMI
Development Media International (DMI) delivers media campaigns aimed at changing behaviours, promoting health, and saving lives in developing countries. We are the first organisation to scientifically demonstrate that mass media can increase life-saving behaviours. In 2018, DMI published the results of its 5-year randomised controlled trial in West Africa which showed that 56% more children were taken for treatment for malaria, 73% more for diarrhoea and 39% more for pneumonia following exposure to our campaign. Modelling indicates that over 3000 lives were saved during the campaign and that our approach is one of the most cost-effective ways of saving children’s lives.
DMI has two priorities: first, to continue to generate ground-breaking research, and second, to take our proven strategies to scale, saving as many lives as possible. We work across a range of health issues, including child survival, reproductive health, nutrition, hygiene, and early childhood development. DMI works in close partnership with leading experts in health, including WHO, UNICEF and LSHTM and has been funded by some of the world’s most prestigious organisations including the Wellcome Trust, FCDO, Comic Relief, the Global Innovation Fund, Unorthodox Philanthropy, the Mulago Foundation and Hilton Foundation.
DMI has offices in Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. DMI’s headquarters in London provides the strategic direction for the whole organisation. Find out more on our website.
Research opportunities
DMI Malawi will be implementing an 18-month national radio campaign to promote positive maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH) behaviours across the continuum of care i.e., from pregnancy and childbirth to the early years of a child’s life. The campaign will aim to educate and empower communities on essential MNCH practices, promote positive health behaviours, and reduce preventable maternal and child deaths. The campaign will be broadcast from April 2026 to September 2027.
DMI Malawi is seeking a research partner to conduct a baseline survey in Mangochi, Dowa and Karonga districts. The baseline survey will follow a crossectional design, with a sample of women with children aged 0-6 months. A detailed Terms of Reference is included below. Interested parties should submit a technical and financial proposal for the work to info@developmentmedia.net by 11th November 2025.
The technical proposal should include the following information:
- Experience of your organisation in conducting similar research and an example report/publication.
- Sampling strategy and data collection approach.
- Work plan with detailed timelines for training of fieldworkers, piloting, data collection etc.
- Proposed team to work on this project, their experience, and the proposed level of effort
- Estimated budget, summary, and breakdown of the costs (In Malawi Kwacha)
TERMS OF REFERENCE: BASELINE SURVEY FOR MNCH PROJECT
Objective
To assess current levels of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours related to MNCH practices through an in-person baseline survey with mothers of children aged 0-6 months.
Target population and sample size
700 women with children aged 0-6 months will be recruited for a cross-sectional, in-person baseline survey.
Study setting, sampling approach and timing
Although the campaign will be implemented nationwide, the baseline survey will be conducted in Karonga, Dowa and Mangochi. These districts have been selected because they rank among the lowest performing across key maternal and child health indicators targeted by the campaign and have high radio listenership within their respective regions.
The following sampling strategy is conditional on approval by the ethics committee and could be modified. DMI welcomes proposals on the sample recruitment, but proposes the following approach:
In each district, randomly select five health facilities using probability proportional to size (PPS), stratified by setting (urban or rural), based on the number of deliveries in each health facility reported in last 12 months. Then, within each health facility, a sampling frame of villages will be generated using maternity registers from the selected health facilities and eight villages will be selected using simple random sampling. Within each selected village, 6–7 eligible participants (mothers with children aged 0-6 months) will be recruited through systematic random sampling method. A sampling frame of eligible women will be generated using maternity registers from the selected health facilities.
In the field, the Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) and Community Health Volunteers will assist research agency in verifying residency and eligibility of the selected participants.
Timelines & specifications
Preparations for the survey (i.e., enumerator training, local permissions etc.) will be done in January 2026 and actual baseline survey data collection should start on 2nd February 2026 at the latest.
The following specifications must be followed:
- DMI has obtained ethical approval for this study from the National Committee on Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and Humanities (NCRSH). With support from DMI, the research agency’s team is responsible for obtaining the necessary approvals from the National and District authorities promptly prior to conducting the survey.
- Prior to the baseline survey, the Research agency will cognitively test the questionnaire with women (aged 18-49 years) who have children aged 0-6 months. Senior personnel from the research agency will supervise this process. Feedback from the cognitive testing will be shared with DMI and DMI will approve any necessary revisions to the questionnaire.
- The research agency will recruit and train all the data collectors prior to data collection on the following: sampling methods, conducting the interviews in Chichewa, seeking informed consent, using the tablets/data collection software, collecting data accurately.
- The research agency agrees to allow DMI to observe the training of enumerators and request additional training if DMI deems it to be necessary.
- Data collectors will have the ability to speak Chichewa and will conduct interviews by using a questionnaire in Chichewa translated by DMI.
- The questionnaire will have questions with skip patterns and should be programmed onto tablets according to DMI’s specifications.
- After training, but prior to data collection starting, the research agency will use tablets for piloting the questionnaire with 10 women (aged 18-49 years) with children aged 0-6 months. The data and feedback will be shared with DMI. Senior personnel from the research agency team will supervise this process. Some final changes might be made to the programmed survey or implementation process based on the pilot results
- The research agency will be responsible for monitoring the quality of data collection and conduct backchecks on minimum 10% of randomly selected study sample to ensure validity of participants interviewed.
- The research agency will be responsible for monitoring, on an on-going basis, the accuracy with which data is being collected by enumerators and provide DMI feedback during weekly calls.
Deliverables
The key deliverables are listed in Table 1. Deliverables will be timebound and specific deadlines will be agreed between the parties once all approvals are in place.
Table 1: Key deliverables
| Key deliverables |
| Review of draft data collection tools |
| Review the translated survey tools and share any further edits with DMI |
| Produce sampling frame, fieldwork schedule and enumerator training manual (based on final questionnaire) and share with DMI for feedback. The framework should incorporate the agreed sampling strategy. Finalize and refine, incorporating DMI’s
feedback. |
| Recruit a team of enumerators to conduct the in-person baseline survey. Prepare all necessary field materials for enumerators to ensure they can administer the survey. |
| Conduct training of enumerators to DMI’s satisfaction. DMI staff should be invited to attend this training, and a payment is attached to this deliverable. |
| Cognitively test the survey tools among sample outlined above and provide feedback to DMI. |
| Programme questionnaire using survey software onto electronic devices and test thoroughly. The outcome questions will be programmed to appear randomly at each interview to limit interviewer and interviewee bias. Send DMI the online questionnaire for testing |
| Pilot the revised questionnaire among sample outlined above and share feedback and data files with DMI. |
| Finalize the questionnaire on electronic devices using survey software following discussion of the pilot results with DMI, and approval from DMI for any changes. |
| Depending on the extent of changes to the survey, repeat training of enumerators to discuss changes made to the questionnaire following piloting of the survey. The need for this additional training session will be agreed between DMI and the Service Provider. |
| Conduct the baseline survey with 700 women with children aged 0-6 months in three districts of Malawi. Supervise on an on-going basis the accuracy with which data is being collected by enumerators and provide DMI feedback during weekly calls. |
| Conduct back-checks of minimum 10% of randomly selected study sample to ensure validity of participants interviewed and monitor the quality of data collection on an ongoing basis and send data files to DMI. |
| Develop a protocol for data cleaning and share the protocol with DMI. Supervise timely data checking and coding and provide a clean and complete anonymised dataset along with variable code list and fieldwork report to DMI. Also send an uncleaned anonymised data set and the code used for data cleaning to DMI. The dataset provided must be of a quality acceptable to DMI and a payment is attached to this deliverable. |
| Provide on-going support to DMI regarding any dataset queries. |
Post expires at 11:59pm on Tuesday November 11th, 2025