The Reliability and Feasibility of the HESPER Web to Assess Perceived Needs in a Population Affected by a Humanitarian Emergency

Karin Hugelius, Charles Nandain, Maya Semrau and Marie Holmefur
Additional contact information
Karin Hugelius: Faculty of Medicine and Health, School of Health Sciences, Örebro University, 701 82 Örebro, Sweden
Charles Nandain: School of Education and Social Sciences, International Leadership University, Nairobi 00200, Kenya
Maya Semrau: Centre for Global Health Research, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton BN1 9PX, UK
Marie Holmefur: Faculty of Medicine and Health, School of Health Sciences, Örebro University, 701 82 Örebro, Sweden

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Needs assessment is essential in the humanitarian response, and perceived needs can be associated with the levels of health in populations affected by humanitarian emergencies. This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and feasibility of The Humanitarian Emergency Settings Perceived Needs Web (HESPER Web) in a humanitarian context and to compare perceived needs of a random walk study sample with a self-selected study sample recruited though social media. The study context was the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. An alternate forms reliability evaluation and a feasibility evaluation was conducted. In total, 308 refugees participated in the study. HESPER Web was found to be reliable and usable for assessing needs, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.88, Cohen’s ? between 0.43 and 1.0 and a first priority need rating match of 81%. The HESPER Web was positively experienced, and the self-recruited study sample reported similar levels of needs and similar demographics as the randomized sample. The participants reported several unmet needs. HESPER Web offers a reliable tool for needs assessment in humanitarian emergencies where web-based surveys are considered as practical and suitable. It offers new possibilities for conducting remote assessments and research studies that include humanitarian populations that are rarely included in such evaluations.

Keywords: humanitarian emergencies; mental health; needs assessment; refugee health; disaster health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1399/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1399/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1399-:d:492412

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().