Resources

The instruments, the methodology, and the publications

Everything in one place. If you are considering using the HCF-WISE Scales, start with the survey instruments and the project primer.

Jump to Survey instruments Project documents Publications

Survey instruments

These are the instruments currently being implemented. They are longer than the final scales will be, given that the current phase is about determining which items to keep.

HCF-WISE Patient Survey

The full patient instrument, covering water, sanitation, hygiene, environmental cleaning, waste management, and menstrual health.

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HCF-WISE Facility Staff Survey

The staff instrument, covering the same six domains from the perspective of clinical, administrative, cleaning, and maintenance staff, with additional operational detail on cleaning practice.

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Teams planning to use the instruments should contact us first. We provide training, translation guidance, and the accompanying facility assessment protocol, and we will let you know if a newer version is about to supersede the one posted here.

Facility assessment protocol

Every site pairs the surveys with a structured assessment of the facility's WASH infrastructure, using observational methods recommended by WHO and UNICEF. It produces service levels for water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management, and environmental cleaning, so that experiential results can be read directly against conventional indicators for the same facilities.

The protocol is shared with partners alongside the instruments and the training materials.

Request the protocol

Project documents

School-WISE and HCF-WISE Project Primer

A short overview of why the project exists, how it is designed, where it is being conducted, and who is involved.

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Call for Partners

A one-page summary of what partnership involves, for sharing with organizations that might want to implement the surveys.

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Data Sharing, Attribution, and Consortium Guidelines

How data are shared, how authorship is determined, and what partners commit to.

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Publications

Peer-reviewed papers from the scale development work are in preparation. Early findings from consortium sites have appeared in the following.

Influence of Seasonality on WASH Insecurity in Healthcare Facilities

Sandec News, Eawag

Findings from the Uganda site on how water quality, availability, and user experience shift between the rainy and dry seasons.

Findings on WASH in schools are collected on the School-WISE Resources page.

Presentations

WHO and UNICEF WASH in Health Care Facilities Network webinar

March 2025 · Joshua Miller

The project's approach and its relevance for advancing measurement of WASH service adequacy and user experience in health care facilities.

Newsletter

The project newsletter carries updates on milestones, new sites, publications, and consortium news.

Related tools and reading

School-WISE Scales

The parallel instrument for schools, developed by the same consortium.

Visit the site
Household (HWISE) and Individual (IWISE) Water Insecurity Experiences Scales

Validated experiential measures of household and individual water insecurity, and the methodological foundation for this work.

Visit the site
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme

Global monitoring of WASH in health care facilities, and the source of the service ladder definitions used in the facility assessment.

Visit the site
The WISE Scales: A New Way to Measure Water Insecurity

A plain-language introduction to the WISE Scales, and to the work extending them into health care facilities and schools. Published on ReliefWeb.

Read the article
Eawag Sandec: the Uganda study

The partner project page at Eawag’s Sandec department, covering the Uganda school and health care facility work. It still carries the project’s former name, INWISE.

Visit the site