BACKGROUND

Jhpiego is a non-profit global health leader and a Johns Hopkins University affiliate that saves lives, improves health, and transforms futures. Working in the Philippines since 1979, Jhpiego has worked closely with the national government, health experts and professional organizations, and local communities to build health providers’ skills and develop systems to save lives now and guarantee futures for women and their families.

The Philippines’ implementation of the HPV vaccination program has been done in phases since 2015. Based on the higher incidence of poverty, twenty (20) priority provinces were chosen initially, later expanding to 82 provinces. There has been substantial variation in school vaccination participation. The analysis done during HAPPI Phase 1 showed that not all municipalities and cities of these provinces have schools that participate in the HPV vaccination. Although many programmatic lessons were learned at subnational levels with variations of high and low coverages, there has not been any systematic effort to document success, challenges, and opportunities for growth in the Philippines.

The proposed learning activity of HAPPI Phase II intends to carry out additional data analysis of existing service statistics and coverage data, analyze health system, community engagement, behavioral and social determinants of HPV vaccination, and gather qualitative programmatic lessons learned through a series of stakeholder engagements at the sub-national level with the intent to promote and inform national scale-up of HPV vaccination in the Philippines and other countries in a similar setting.

This effort will leverage Jhpiego’s existing presence in the 14 provinces and 20 cities where Jhpiego has worked through the UNITAID/Expertise France-funded SUCCESS Project focused on secondary prevention of cervical cancer, as well as other regions and districts where appropriate, at least in seven (7) regions in Luzon, including six (6) highly urbanized cities in the National Capital Region or Metro Manila, two (2) in the Visayas, and two (2) in Mindanao. Outside the SUCCESS Project sites are “bright spots” LGUs that demonstrated at least 80% HPV vaccination coverage based on available administrative data from the Department of Education. Overall, the local government units from the project and non-project sites demonstrate high and low uptake of HPV vaccination and coverage.

To tease out enablers and barriers contributing to the elimination of cervical cancer efforts inclusive of HPV vaccination, Jhpiego will use the relationships established with the Department of Health’s (DOH) Center for Health Development (subnational) offices and local government units’ (LGUs) provincial health offices (PHOs) under SUCCESS to help those locations learn how to better incorporate and accelerate HPV vaccination as part of the expanding cervical cancer elimination activities.

Aligned with the DOH’s 2024-2028 National Integrated Cancer Control Program (NICC) Strategic Framework and the commitment of the Philippines to the WHO Global Strategy to Accelerate Elimination of Cervical Cancer as a Public Health Problem by 2030, this learning activity will yield a framework for policymakers, decision-makers, and implementing partners on how best to expand to the full spectrum of services and interventions to achieve the 90-70-90 global targets of the Strategy, as well as the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and the Immunization Agenda 2030.

PLANNED LEARNING ACTIVITY IN SELECT AREAS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Jhpiego is looking for an experienced firm or organization that will conduct the learning activities of HAPPI Phase II and other related learning activities on HPV vaccination on the following:

• Quantitative and qualitative methodologies on HPV vaccination in select local government units

• Primary Objective: To identify health system and community engagement determinants of HPV vaccination uptake and improve coverage
• Secondary objectives

• To determine behavioral and social determinants or drivers of HPV vaccination
• To obtain multi-sectoral inputs of various stakeholders on enablers and barriers of HPV vaccination
• To develop a framework to guide future programming

• Perform desk reviews on policies, guidelines, strategies and approaches, analysis of primary and secondary sources of data and statistics

• Identify stakeholders involved, including vaccine confidence and perceptions of parents, service providers, and community leaders on HPV vaccination

• Conduct participatory action or participatory health research, which may include similar approaches on lessons learned practical application, appreciative inquiry, force field analysis, or levels of understanding

• Utilize evidence-based tools and practical guidance that will determine behavioral and social drivers of HPV vaccination
• Develop products from the findings learning activity to be used by national, subnational, and local government units for policy development, program and operations planning, health promotion, risk communication, and community engagement.

The purpose of this EOI is to identify a firm or an organization with the capacity to lead the implementation of the HAPPI Phase II Learning Activity and other learning-related activities.  At this stage, please do not submit any research proposals.

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST REQUIREMENTS

Submission Requirements of the Firm/Organization

A – Profile

A.1. Organizational capacity statement of no more than 4 pages, following the outline below: Provide a brief description of the background of your organization and each of the associates who will work on this assignment. The brief description should include ownership details, date and place of incorporation, the organization’s objectives, and availability of appropriate skills among staff, brochures, etc.

• Technical capacity

• • Experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research on a combination of the following: public health, child or adolescent health, school health, immunization, including vaccine confidence, integrated health service delivery, behavioral and social determinants (BeSD) of health, gender programming, health promotion, risk communication, and community engagement, in either (or both) public or private sector(s), and at the local government or community levels, highlighting work in the Philippines or the specific province, municipality or city, if applicable
  • Staff with expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, implementation science research, data management, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, knowledge management and communication audit, stakeholder mapping, participatory action or participatory health research, including similar methodologies on lessons learned practical application, appreciative inquiry, force field analysis, and levels of understanding
  • List of up to 10 most relevant peer-reviewed journal articles authored or co-authored by leadership or core staff in the past 3-7 years
  • Brief description of data systems (including data security) and data management/analysis, platforms/hardware, and programming languages

 

• Organizational capacity

• • Year founded
  • Leadership, core, and contract staff
  • Location of offices, noting satellite office or branches outside of Metro Manila, if applicable
  • Financial management structure
  • Funding experience (amounts and donors by research study or project for the last 3-5 years)
  • Regulatory and relationships with local and national IRB(s)
  • Any academic affiliation, collaboration with health professional organizations, students, and/or cooperation with other Philippine state colleges and universities (SCUs), or private universities or colleges

A.2. Financial, no more than 1 page: Provide the turnover and net worth of the firm or organization based on the audited accounts of the previous three financial years 2020-2021, 2021-2022, and 2022-2023. Please note that additional financial documents will be requested and reviewed during the selection process. 

B – Experience: no more than 2 pages total

The firm or organization is expected to furnish up to 5 examples of previous experience conducting health-, social science-, or implementation science-related research(es) during the last 3 years. Each project description should consist of the following for each of such activities undertaken by the organization:

1. Organization for which the activity was undertaken
2. Nature of assignment (training/survey/materials development, etc.)
3. Brief description of the project
4. Project/Assignment location: Urban/Rural
5. Details of any associate consultant(s) engaged
6. Number of technical personnel or staff involved
7. Links to or e-copies of reports/documents/PPT related to such assignments

No additional information should be submitted at this stage but may be requested in the short-listing or selection process.

 

EOI EVALUATION CRITERIA

Evaluation will be based on the criteria listed below:

• Technical competence 60% (as described in A.1 and B) and financial management systems 40%
• Five (5) years minimum experience in carrying out rigorous health-, social science-, or implementation science-related research(es), or learning activities in any of the domains of public health, health systems strengthening, child or adolescent health, integrated health service delivery, immunization or vaccine confidence, behavioral and social determinants of health, post-vaccine introduction evaluation, or related fields

Technical Evaluation Criteria 

Technical criteria to evaluate the firm or service provider’s performance would be:

• Skill of the firm or organization provider to perform the assignment including the number of years of experience in conducting research work
• Data systems and data management/analysis
• Details of similar assignments conducted in the last three to five (3-5) years 
• Staff qualifications – the quality of staff/team members to be assigned to this project 
• Demonstrable strong finance management systems

The firm or organization provider will be selected in accordance with the credibility and previous experiences working in the areas of health, social science, implementation science research, or learning activity, as well as strong finance management systems. Jhpiego reserves the right to select/reject any firm or organization for the abovementioned purpose and can also cancel the EOI process in accordance with institutional norms.

EOI SUBMISSION DEADLINE

Please send your Cover Letter and Detailed EOI response (i.e., A. Profile and B. Experience) to procurement.ph@jhpiego.org by June 17, 2024. Mention “Profile for HAPPI Phase II Learning and Other Learning-Related Activities” in the subject line. Kindly note submissions above 6 pages will not be considered. Only shortlisted firms or organizations will be contacted for interviews.