
Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART)
1. Nutritional status of children under-five.
2. Mortality rate of the population.
These indicators are useful for prioritizing resources as well as for monitoring the extent to which the relief system is meeting the needs of the population, and therefore the overall impact of relief response.
Advantages of using SMART
SMART ensures that consistent and reliable survey data is collected and analyzed using a single standardized methodology. It provides technical capacity for decision-making and reporting, and comprehensive support for strategic and sustained capacity building. Key SMART InnovationsSMART ensures that consistent and reliable survey data is collected and analyzed using a single standardized methodology. It provides technical capacity for decision-making and reporting, and comprehensive support for strategic and sustained capacity building.
Key SMART Innovations
- • Plausibility Check to verify data quality and flag problems.
- • User-friendly software ENA and manuals that are easy to use even for non-epidemiologists.
- • Flexibility in sample size calculation and cluster sizes, with standardized survey protocols with the use of replacement clusters, household selection techniques, and best field practices (e.g. for absent children or empty households).
- • Rigorous standardization test procedures and analysis.
- • Regularly updated, clear sampling guidance based on field experiences, research and best practices.
- • Improved census procedure for mortality assessments..
The widely used combination of SMART and ENA has improved data quality review and assurance in larger surveys (e.g. Multiple-Indicator Cluster Surveys- MICS and Demographic Household Surveys- DHS) and has also been incorporated into many national nutrition protocols.
The ONLY contexts for which a Rapid SMART survey should be conducted instead of a full SMART:
Need for rapid estimate of the nutritional status in a representative and accurate manner in emergency contexts
Limited time for collecting the information in terms of accessibility due to high insecurity
The main objectives and contexts in which Rapid SMART surveys are carried out are detailed above. The validity of Rapid SMART surveys is confirmed only after the representativeness, accuracy and precision of the results are evaluated. Assessment should only occur in a clearly delimited zone (e.g. group of villages, IDP/Refugee camps or settlements, urban slums and neighborhoods) whose population has similar patterns (affected by the crisis, having equal access to services, having similar culture, same livelihood zone etc.). For the sake of accurate and precise under-nutrition3 prevalence estimation, a full multi-cluster nutrition survey is recommended as soon as the situation gets stable and the population is accessible. If it is judged that other information such as food security, Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) and care practices as well as WASH situation are more necessary in a given emergency, then other adapted studies have to be prioritized over Rapid SMART surveys.