What is Pathways?
Pathways combines data and research to uncover what is getting in the way of good health—and what can be done about it. Since 2019, Pathways has been used by partners to forecast, resource, design, and evaluate holistic health solutions in over twenty projects in seven countries – with more to come.
Pathways groups communities based on their health vulnerabilities, helping partners take action quickly to improve health outcomes by providing reliable data, research-backed insights, intuitive tools, and customized technical support.
Pathways is led by Sonder Collective, a global network of designers and researchers committed to driving social change, and funded by the Gates Foundation.
Pathways Digital Platform
Pathways uses a quantitative algorithm to cluster or segment households into groups based on social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors. Additional qualitative research and analyses are applied to further explore vulnerability or risk factors and health outcomes experienced by specific segments.
These quantitative data and qualitative insights are joined into rich profiles on the Pathways digital platform—currently available in Beta—that health program analysts, policymakers, donors, and implementers can use to better understand subpopulations, develop and resource strategies, design and implement projects, and measure impact.
Behind the scenes, the platform is powered by a robust and open-source data warehouse and content management systems. This architecture enables project teams to segment communities using a short, adaptive questionnaire powered by simplified decision trees. As a result, qualitative narratives, behavioral insights, and lived experience data can be systematically integrated into segment profiles—informing program design and guiding decision-making.
OpenHEXA, the data studio backbone
OpenHEXA provides the data backbone that allows Pathways to manage, automate, and scale backend processes.
Data Management with OpenHEXA Datasets
OpenHEXA Datasets serve as the central repository for key data assets across the Pathways workflow, including:
- Raw survey data (DHS, Pathways surveys)
- Segmentation model outputs and segment assignments
- Decision trees and lookup tables
Datasets ensure version control, traceability, and secure sharing across partners and countries.
Workflow Automation with OpenHEXA Pipelines
Pathways uses OpenHEXA Data Pipelines to automate:
- Preparation and transformation of segmentation outputs
- Generation of summary statistics and population indicators
- Building and updating decision trees
- Monitoring recruitment through integrations with IASO and Superset
By automating these workflows, OpenHEXA enables Pathways to scale operations efficiently, maintain consistency across countries, and easily update tools, processes, and segments as new data becomes available.
This partnership illustrates how OpenHEXA not only supports complex data processing but enables the full operationalization of advanced segmentation frameworks across multiple countries, partners, and contexts.
Want to learn more about how OpenHEXA supports global data collaborations? Contact us
Want to learn more about Pathways? Contact the team contact@projectpathways.org.
