CREATING A NEW SPECTRUM PROJECTION FILE AND

BASIC LiST ANALYSIS

Creating a new projection file

1. Install Spectrum/LiST on your computer. (See How-To Guide ‘Installing Spectrum and LiST’).
2. Create a new projection. This can be done one of three ways:
a. Home  New
b. File  New projection
c. Welcome screen  New projection
3. The projection manager will open. Select ‘Projection file name’ to name the projection and
specify its location. If you are using this projection as a baseline, include something in the
name that will identify it as such. For example, ‘Uganda baseline’. Click save.
4. Set the year boundaries for the demographic projection that will be incorporated into LiST.
‘First year’ of the projection is the base year for the demographic projection. Final year is
the final year of the projection. It is best to select broad boundaries – even broader than the
years of interest for your project. That way, if you want to look at different years in the
future, they will be available to you and you will not have to create a new projection.
5. Activate the modules you want to use in the projection. DemProj is necessary for the
projection to run and cannot be turned off. The AIM module is automatically selected when
you are working with a country where AIDS is 2% or more of the disease burden in children
under five years of age. If this is the case, it is impossible to use LiST without also using the
AIM module because of the importance of the HIV epidemic in predicting changes in
demography. If you want to model the impact of family planning interventions, select the
FamPlan module. The DemProj, LiST, AIM and FamPlan modules are the ones most likely to
be of interest when doing a LiST analysis. To learn more about the other modules, hover
over the names for a description.
6. Click ‘Default data’ to select a country from which to retrieve demographic and other
default data. The first time you do this, you will need an internet connection to download
default data. Do this by clicking on the “download default data” button and selecting all
countries. After downloading these data once, you will only need to select a country from
the list, and click ok. Click ‘ok’.
7. Save the projection. Please note that the software does not automatically save the
projection to your computer. You must do this manually.
a. Home  Save
b. File  Save projection
8. You have now created a demographic projection for a specific country with all default data
available in the Spectrum software. The next step is to configure the LiST analysis.

Configuring the baseline projection

1. If you want to do an analysis that compares multiple intervention scale-ups, it is a good idea
to first create a baseline projection that does not change. This projection can be “saved as”
another projection to model the various scale-ups of interest.
2. Go to the ‘Modules’ tab and select ‘LiST’. Click on Configuration.
3. Select the base year of coverage. This is the reference year for the baseline LiST data. It
should be the year closest to the base year for which health intervention coverage and
cause of death data are available in LiST. Data are available for as far back as 2000. If you
change the base year of coverage to a year prior to 2000, LiST will use data from 2000.
4. Select the first year of the intervention program. This is the year the intervention starts, or
the year from which you are calculating the impact of a specific coverage change. It is the
first year for which LiST shows results. Lives saved are calculated relative to this year.
5. Select direct entry of stunting and/or wasting if you have country specific data on the
distribution of stunting and wasting and want to model the impact of changing stunting and
wasting distributions on mortality. (See Slide Show: ‘Nutrition in LiST’).
6. Create and manage custom interventions allows you to add interventions not in LiST (See
Slide Show: ‘Adding Custom Interventions’).
7. If you have questions as you are configuring the projection, click on the Help menu for more
details. When you are done, click ok.
8. Select ‘Health status, mortality and economic status’. Note that ‘baseline year’ should be
the same year as the base year of coverage. All data in these tabs should be from as close as
possible to that year. Update any data you wish to change. If you are unsure, the default
data can remain.
9. Select ‘Coverage’. Update any of the default data you wish to change. If you have no more
recent data, the default data can remain. To change the coverage values for items
calculated from other coverage values used as proxys, follow the directions at the top of
each coverage editor screen to de-link items. When these steps are complete, remember to
save this baseline projection. It is very important to remember to save whenever you make
changes.

Creating a scale-up projection

1. If you would like to create alternative scenarios to compare with the baseline, first be sure
you have saved the baseline. It is important to keep these files separate and clearly named
so you can compare the outputs later.
2. Go to File  Save projection as. Give the projection a new name. The name should indicate
that this is a scale-up projection. For example if your intervention involves scale-up of ORS
in Uganda, you might name the second projection ‘Uganda ORS’.
3. Do not change baseline health, mortality or economic status from the baseline scenario or
the interventions coverage between the baseline year to the first year of the intervention.
Otherwise, the scale-up projection will not compare accurately against the baseline in terms
of the impact of changing intervention coverage.
4. Enter data for the scale-up scenario. For example, let’s say you want to model a scale up of
Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) to 80% in 2020.
5. Go to the LiST coverage tab.
6. Go to the curative tab.
7. In the ORS row, enter ‘80’ in 2020. To model a linear increase in coverage between the base
year and 2020, highlight the cells and click interpolate.
8. Click ok.
9. Note, if you select ‘Cancel’ instead of ‘OK’ or use the ‘x’ in the upper right hand corner to
close this screen, the changes you made will disappear.
10. IMPORTANT: Remember to save your projection again from the home menu.
11. You now have baseline and scale-up projections. Open them both before generating results
to see results for both at the same time (See Video: Getting Results in LiST).