VACS data course
Welcome to the learning VACS course!
The aim of this VACS course is to support researchers, practitioners, advocates and policymakers to: Contextualise, analyse, interpret and use the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS).
We want to create a community of practice to support analyses of data on violence against children to inform programming and policy and create a free and accessible resource on how to analyse data on violence against children.
This course is for you if you:
- Are interested in understanding how VACS data were collected
- Want to learn approaches to analysing data on violence
- Are planning or conducting analyses of VACS data
How to take the course:
- Watch all the sections or select the ones more relevant to you
- It may be helpful to have a provisional research question related to the VACS
- Download VACS data and documentation from the Together for Girls website
- Give us your feedback! Link to feedback form here
Subscribe and stay involved!
Join a growing, global community dedicated to ending violence against children and adolescents.
Also sign up to Net-VAC: a network of early career violence researchers who are interested in exploring how school, household, neighbourhood and community contexts shape experiences of and use of violence as children grow up. The network will meet several times in 2024 and 2025.
Thank you to the SDG Impact grant at the University of Oxford for supporting this course.
Resources for self and collective care:
Meet the team
DSPI, Oxford
CPRG, LSHTM
Jodie Pearlman
Research Fellow & PhD Candidate, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Dr. Charles Opondo
Associate Professor of Medical Statistics and Co-Director of the Clinical Trials Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Prof Karen Devries
Epidemiologist, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Aga Khan University
Course outline
Section 1: VACS in context
1.1 Introduction to the VACS
1.2 The case for the VACS
1.3 Coordinating the 2015 Uganda VACS: Key learnings
1.4 Ethics of data collection on violence
1.5 Interviewing young people about violence
1.6 Uganda Humanitarian VACS, 2024
1.7 Conclusions and takeaways
Section 2: Analysing data on violence
2.1 A brief introduction to the epidemiology of violence against children
2.2 Key principles in the analysis of data on violence against children
2.3 Section 2: Conclusions and takeaways
Section 3: Analysing VACS data
3.1 Overview of VACS survey sampling and design
3.2 Overview of VACS constructs, and possible research questions
3.3 Estimating the prevalence of violence in the VACS: How to construct violence variables
3.4 How to construct physical violence variable
3.5 How to construct sexual violence variables
3.6 How to construct emotional violence variables
3.7 Estimating the prevalence of school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in the VACS
3.8 Conclusions and takeaways
Section 4: Using VACS data for programmes, policy & research
4.1 Reporting & communicating data on violence
4.2 Geospatial Patterns of Violence Against Adolescent Girls & Young Women in Namibia
Jump ahead to:
Section 1: VACS in context
Section 3: Analysing VACS data
