Research Snapshot: Community feedback in Ebola outbreaks

Community voices and concerns can help to inform and improve humanitarian response. Listening to community feedback also underpins humanitarian principles. However, decision makers in outbreaks are besieged by huge amounts of data and many competing priorities, making use of this evidence challenging.

This research aimed to understand how a new qualitative community feedback system was used during the North Kivu Ebola outbreak by decision-makers to shape response policy, as part of a larger project which also examined Safe and Dignified Burial practices.

The study team found that even though community feedback brought important insights, decision-makers struggled to understand and apply evidence to adapt the response.  Learning from this study has helped improve use of the community feedback mechanism by humanitarian partners.

This snapshot contains key messages, findings, implications for humanitarian policymakers and practitioners and recommendations for further research.