‘The response is like a big ship’: community feedback as a case study of evidence uptake and use in the 2018–2020 Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The 2018–2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) took place in the highly complex protracted crisis regions of North Kivu and Ituri. The Red Cross developed a community feedback (CF) data collection process through the work of hundreds of Red Cross personnel, who gathered unprompted feedback to inform the response coordination mechanism and decision-making. This paper is based on qualitative data collected in November 2019 in Goma and Beni, including document review, observation of meetings and CF activities, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. It illustrates that CF data collection has both instrumental and intrinsic value for outbreak response and should be normalised as a critical data stream; however, a failure to act on those data can further frustrate communities.