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Question: I am opening a temporary housing program in a resource-poor country for patients who are in treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis and whose unstable housing has become a barrier to treatment adherence. The patients will be in a non-infectious phase of treatment. I am looking for outcome data tools to monitor and measure the success of the program.
Answer: Thank you for contacting Ask an Advisor. The "Do the Work" tab on the purple strip of the CTB homepage includes a section on evaluating interventions (#12). It includes "how to" sections, links to evaluation tools on the CTB website, and links to other resources. We do not know whether there has been similar housing work done in relation to TB. If you are familiar with the work of Paul Farmer, he may have written about such initiatives related to TB. If you cannot find evaluation tools specific to housing for persons with TB infections, you may look at housing for persons with mental illness. The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) has many tools on their site related to housing interventions. The CTB evaluation tools and those of CMHS may provide good examples of how you may adapt tools for your particular project. Thanks again for contacting Ask an Advisor at CTB. We hope the information was useful.
Question Date: Sat, 06/13/2009