Since its inception in 2010, the Family Planning High Impact Practice (HIP) Partnership has sought to provide the field with family planning practices that both demonstrate impact and have the potential to be scaled in a range of country contexts and program settings. Determining the appropriateness of evidence and its strength to inform policies and programming is challenging. The partnership’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) needed a standardized way to review and assess the evidence that would center on rigor and value experiential, or tacit, learning. This paper explains the resulting HIP Evidence Scale and calibration of the criteria for determining whether a service delivery or social behavior change HIP is proven or promising. A custom-built, Excel-based HIP Criteria Tool is used to score the assessment of the five criteria on which HIPs are based (impact, applicability/reliability/generalizability to a range of settings, scalability, affordability, and sustainability). The scale and tool can accommodate a range of programmatic interventions and outcomes (centered, but not exclusively, around contraceptive use). The scale, based on the philosophy of using the best available evidence along with practitioner expertise to make decisions on programmatic interventions, is suitable for other health areas.
Finding balance with the importance of rigorous research and tacit learning in assessing “What works?”
