Forecasting EPI coverage drop-out following 2025–26 donor reductions
Which Malawi districts are most exposed to EPI coverage drop-out as donor financing contracts in 2025–26?
Ministry · Ministry of Health (Malawi) / EPI Programme
- Difficulty
- MSc
- Timeline
- 8 months
- Methods
- 3 listed
- Budget ask
- USD 1,500
Why it matters
The Malawi Ministry of Health is preparing prioritisation decisions for the 2026 EPI cycle under a tightened external-financing environment. Pure public data (HMIS, EPI annual bulletins, DHS) is enough to identify the districts most exposed — but no one is currently doing the forecast in a way the ministry can act on.
The question
As donor-supported immunisation financing contracts in 2025–26, which Malawi districts are most exposed to EPI coverage drop-out — and what is the recommended sequencing of mitigation given a finite operational budget?
Why now
Malawi’s EPI programme has historically depended on external co-financing. The 2025–26 shifts in the Gavi co-financing landscape and bilateral aid contractions mean districts that were marginally above coverage thresholds in 2024 may slide below them in 2026. The ministry needs a forecast it can act on — not a retrospective.
Methods landscape (sketch)
A Bayesian hierarchical model with district-level random effects, a temporal trend component, and a covariate set drawn from HMIS staffing, cold-chain coverage, and historical drop-out rates. Spatial smoothing using a CAR prior on district adjacency. Validation against 2023 holdout. Not a 3D space-time GP — overkill for this question. Not a deep-learning approach — the data don’t justify it and the ministry would not be able to interpret it.
Full dossier with starter pack, data sources, supervisor and adviser publishes on v0.1.
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