A decade on the front line: what mobile data has taught us about responding to Ebola and other outbreaks – GeoPoll

From West Africa in 2014 to the Bundibugyo outbreak in DRC and Uganda in 2026, GeoPoll has spent greater than a decade amassing information inside illness outbreaks when different strategies can’t attain affected communities. Here’s what we now have realized and what we provide to companions responding now.

On 15 Could 2026, the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared its seventeenth Ebola outbreak. Inside 48 hours, the World Well being Group declared a Public Well being Emergency of Worldwide Concern. As of late Could, greater than 1,200 suspected and confirmed circumstances had been reported with over 260 deaths. The outbreak is brought on by Bundibugyo virus, a uncommon Ebola pressure for which no authorised vaccine but exists. Imported circumstances have been confirmed in Uganda, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

For GeoPoll, the information triggered an instantaneous query that has pushed our work for the previous twelve years: how can we acquire dependable, consultant information from communities that discipline groups can’t safely or simply attain, quick sufficient to tell a dwell response.

This text walks by means of GeoPoll’s printed expertise supporting responses to Ebola, COVID-19, cholera, and Mpox throughout Africa and Asia, and lays out what we provide companions now.

The place it started: West Africa, 2014

The 2014 to 2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak killed practically 12,000 folks throughout Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It additionally turned the second that cellular information assortment in humanitarian crises moved from promising thought to operational actuality.

When the outbreak peaked, GeoPoll was finalising its SMS survey system in Liberia. As we documented within the Journal of Well being Communication, that timing meant we might start working surveys instantly. We didn’t should construct infrastructure from scratch in the midst of a disaster. The identical is true at this time. Our platform, panel, and cellular community operator integrations are in place within the affected nations earlier than the following outbreak begins.

What we did throughout the West Africa outbreak

Within the years that adopted, our SMS and CATI surveys in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea coated a spread of programme questions. A number of of those initiatives are documented in printed case research and peer-reviewed work:

• Meals safety monitoring with the United Nations World Meals Programme. Over three months in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, we collected indicators on meals costs, wages, and family coping. The work tailored the lowered Coping Methods Index for cellular supply, with prior validation exhibiting no vital distinction between cellular and face-to-face assortment. Case research.
• Market performance monitoring for the Famine Early Warning Techniques Community. Panel-based SMS surveys with market merchants in Sierra Leone and Liberia, monitoring market sizes, working prices, inventory ranges, and agricultural exercise by means of ten rounds. Case research.
• Lengthy-term financial affect surveys for the USAID Bureau for Africa and FHI360. 13 rounds of nationally stratified surveys in Liberia and Sierra Leone between January and June 2015, monitoring revenue, employment, meals costs, and education. Pattern base of 1.8 million in Sierra Leone and 1.6 million in Liberia, with 1,000 completes per nation per spherical. Case research.
• Well being communications analysis with Johns Hopkins College in Liberia. SMS-based neighborhood dialogue and hearsay monitoring, supporting Ebola threat communication and neighborhood engagement. Documented within the educational literature.
• Neighborhood perceptions in Sierra Leone with Keystone Accountability. Assessing how the inhabitants seen the worldwide neighborhood’s response in actual time.

Throughout the West Africa outbreak, GeoPoll reached greater than 100,000 folks. The strategies labored as a result of the folks we surveyed already had entry to cell phones, our community operator integrations meant respondents incurred no value to take part, and the SMS and voice modes didn’t require enumerators to enter quarantine zones or remedy areas.

What we realized

Three operational classes from 2014 to 2016 nonetheless form how we run surveys throughout outbreaks at this time:

• Hold surveys brief. On SMS, response charges drop sharply past 12 to fifteen questions. The constraint forces self-discipline on what we ask.
• Pre-code open-ended questions. 160-character limits and noisy environments imply structured response choices outperform free textual content for many use circumstances.
• At all times provide airtime credit score on completion. Small incentives (we now have usually used the native equal of about USD 0.50) considerably enhance completion charges amongst low-income respondents.

Past West Africa: outbreaks within the DRC and the jap hall

Between 2018 and 2020, the DRC skilled two extra giant Ebola outbreaks within the jap a part of the nation, primarily in North Kivu and Ituri. GeoPoll deployed cellular surveys throughout these outbreaks as properly, centered on socio-economic affect and knowledge circulation. By the point we entered the COVID-19 period in 2020, we had successfully constructed a playbook for outbreak response work and utilized it throughout an increasing set of geographies and well being threats.

Our expertise now spans the key well being emergencies of the final decade:

• Ebola: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea (2014 to 2016) and the DRC (2018 to 2020)
• COVID-19: 30+ nations throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the Center East and North Africa, and Asia
• Cholera: Zambia (2024) and different African geographies
• Mpox: DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Central African Republic, and Kenya (2024)
• Different infectious illness and vaccine work: malaria, polio, measles, yellow fever, and routine immunisation research throughout a number of African nations

COVID-19: when the playbook scaled

When COVID-19 reached sub-Saharan Africa in 2020, the strategies we had refined for Ebola scaled up in a single day. Between 2020 and 2022, GeoPoll ran self-funded and partner-funded analysis throughout greater than 30 nations, overlaying financial affect, meals safety, vaccine acceptance, and threat communication. Findings from our November 2020 vaccine acceptance research throughout Cote d’Ivoire, the DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa have been archived publicly in ICPSR and utilized by researchers and coverage makers globally.

We continued monitoring vaccine perceptions throughout a number of rounds. The April 2021 follow-up, reported on the GeoPoll weblog, discovered that fewer than half of respondents (48 %) felt they’d been given sufficient reliable details about the vaccine, a discovering that mirrored what we have been seeing on the bottom.

The COVID work cemented two ideas we now apply by default in outbreak analysis:

• Multi-mode is non-negotiable. SMS reaches the broadest base however limits depth. CATI handles longer devices and sophisticated skip logic. Cell internet reaches smartphone-heavy segments. In-person fills gaps for offline populations. One of the best outbreak research mix modes by design, not as a fallback.
• Belief issues greater than attain. A consultant pattern of people that refuse to reply actually will not be a pattern. We put money into respondent identification verification, plain-language consent, and call-centre coaching in native languages as a result of belief in the intervening time of the interview drives information high quality.

Mpox: turning prior expertise into fast mobilisation

When mpox started spreading by means of Central and Japanese Africa in 2024, GeoPoll moved into the response inside weeks. As we wrote on the time, the parallels with earlier outbreaks have been clear: a illness shifting sooner than conventional surveillance, vaccine hesitancy reshaping its trajectory, and demand from public well being companions and pharmaceutical firms for granular, real-time information.

By way of late 2024 we ran mpox vaccine acceptance and behavior monitoring rounds throughout six African nations: DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Central African Republic, and Kenya. The DRC mpox vaccine acceptance work has since been printed in peer-reviewed medical literature and stays one of many largest mobile-based mpox research on document from that interval.

Cholera Zambia: a public-good information drop in the midst of a disaster

In early 2024, whereas Zambia was managing a cholera outbreak that had contaminated greater than 21,000 folks and induced over 700 deaths, GeoPoll ran a self-funded nationwide CATI survey to know public consciousness, water and sanitation entry, and behavior change. The findings have been launched as a public report on ReliefWeb with an interactive dashboard. The research used a stratified random pattern of 400 respondents drawn from our Zambia panel, delivered in English, Bemba, and Nyanja from our Lusaka name centre.

The purpose of that work was not business. It was to display one thing that we consider issues greater than any single research: in a disaster, the correct response is to assemble and share information rapidly, even when there isn’t any shopper paying for it.

What we provide companions responding to the 2026 outbreak

The aptitude that an organisation wants throughout an outbreak will not be summary. It’s a brief record of sensible issues, performed rapidly and properly. Here’s what we provide.

Cell information assortment throughout a number of modes

We run surveys by means of the channels respondents really use. Most outbreak research mix these by design:

• SMS surveys: Free-to-user by way of cellular community operator integrations. Greatest for broad attain, brief devices, and reaching low-income or rural populations. Used closely in our Ebola, COVID, and cholera work.
• Laptop Assisted Phone Interviewing (CATI): Dwell calls from our name centres in Nairobi, Lusaka, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, and Panama Metropolis. Greatest for longer devices, complicated skip logic, delicate subjects, and qualitative depth.
• Cell internet (link-based): Surveys delivered by way of WhatsApp, SMS hyperlink, or different distribution. Greatest for smartphone-heavy segments, image-based questions, and longer self-completion.
• GeoPoll App: Our smartphone software helps longer panels and incentivised monitoring research.
• In-person interviewing: The place offline populations or delicate observations are wanted, we deploy educated discipline groups. Used selectively in our outbreak work, primarily for qualitative and validation functions.

Attain throughout affected geographies

GeoPoll has greater than 5 million profiled panelists and entry to over 250 million people throughout 64 nations. Within the geographies most related to the present Ebola outbreak, our panel and infrastructure are operational at this time:

• Democratic Republic of the Congo: energetic panel and call-centre capability. French, Lingala, Kiswahili, and Kinande supported.
• Uganda: energetic panel, English and main native languages.
• Adjoining at-risk nations: Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Kenya all have operational panels.

Velocity when velocity issues

Outbreak response can’t wait three months for fieldwork. Typical timelines for GeoPoll outbreak research:

Methodology that holds as much as scrutiny

Outbreak analysis is learn by epidemiologists, donors, and ethics committees. Our default methodology is designed to go that scrutiny:

• CDC-aligned KAP frameworks. We design information, attitudes, and observe devices to be suitable with established disease-response frameworks.
• Stratified random sampling. By gender, age, and geography. We report margins of error and confidence intervals constantly.
• IRB expertise. We now have participated in institutional overview board processes with universities and analysis companions. Our analysis follows ESOMAR and WAPOR moral requirements.
• Clear reporting. Each research studies its pattern dimension, margin of error, languages, mode, and discipline interval. We don’t disguise methodology.

Senselytic for real-time qualitative evaluation

Outbreaks generate loads of qualitative sign: open-ended responses, call-centre notes, social listening, focus group transcripts. Senselytic, our AI-powered qualitative evaluation device, helps companions extract patterns from this materials in hours as a substitute of weeks. We used it to help evaluation on multi-country COVID and mpox research, and it’s a core functionality for the present Ebola response.

Two methods companions can interact with us

For the present Bundibugyo outbreak, we’re providing two complementary engagement choices. They will stand alone or run in parallel:

1. Commissioned analysis

Bespoke research designed round a single associate’s questions. Appropriate when you’ve gotten particular resolution wants, geographic priorities, or contractual reporting necessities. Examples we’re geared up to run at this time embody vaccine acceptance and intent, threat communication effectiveness, healthcare-seeking behaviour, hearsay and misinformation surveillance, meals safety and financial affect in affected zones, and case investigation help.

2. Ebola Outbreak Omnibus Survey

A shared, nationally consultant DRC survey the place a number of organisations contribute customized questions and obtain their very own solutions plus frequent themes. Prices are shared, fielding is quicker, and outcomes are comparable throughout taking part organisations. Appropriate for companions who want information however don’t require a full standalone research. A parallel Uganda omnibus will run if there may be adequate curiosity.

Get in Contact

Bundibugyo Ebola has no authorised vaccine. The response will succeed or fail on case discovering, contact tracing, threat communication, and neighborhood belief. All 4 depend upon understanding what folks in affected areas really consider, know, worry, and want. That understanding can’t be assumed and it can’t be sampled from clinic registers alone. It needs to be collected from folks, in their very own language, on a platform they already use.

GeoPoll has been amassing that type of information by means of each main African outbreak of the final twelve years. The infrastructure is in place. The methodology is documented. The crew is mobilised. We’re able to help companions engaged on this response, from public-good monitoring to bespoke programme analysis, from fast omnibus participation to long-term monitoring research.

In each outbreak we now have labored on, the lesson has been the identical: velocity compounds. Choices made on Day 7 with imperfect information are often higher than selections made on Day 30 with excellent information. We’re constructed to ship on Day 7.

To study extra, focus on commissioned analysis, or to take part within the Ebola Outbreak Omnibus Survey, contact us.