Lay health workers (LHWs) perform functions related to healthcare delivery, receive some level of training, but have no formal professional or paraprofessional certificate or tertiary education degree. This review addresses these issues through a synthesis of qualitative evidence and was carried out alongside the Cochrane review of the effectiveness of LHWs for maternal and … [Read more...] about Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of lay health worker programmes to improve access to maternal and child health: qualitative evidence synthesis
Recruitment and Retention
Retention of female volunteer community health workers in Dhaka urban slums: a case-control study
Volunteer community health workers (CHWs) are one approach to addressing the health workforce shortage in developing countries. BRAC, a large NGO in Bangladesh, is a pioneer in using female volunteer CHWs as core workers in its successful health programmes. After 25 years of implementing the CHW model in rural areas, BRAC is now using CHWs in urban slums of Dhaka through … [Read more...] about Retention of female volunteer community health workers in Dhaka urban slums: a case-control study
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Report on Work Force Capacity and HIV/AIDS
The paucity of trained health professionals and other human resources to combat HIV/AIDS in the focus countries is a stark indicator of the challenges facing the Emergency Plan. Policies that mandate that only health professionals can provide health services, when trained community health workers could provide components of prevention, care, and … [Read more...] about President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Report on Work Force Capacity and HIV/AIDS
Interventions to Improve Motivation and Retention of Community Health Workers Delivering Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM): Stakeholder Perceptions and Priorities
This work reports the results of semi-structured interviews with 15 international stakeholders, selected because of their experiences in community health worker program implementation, to elicit their views on strategies that could increase community health worker motivation and retention. … [Read more...] about Interventions to Improve Motivation and Retention of Community Health Workers Delivering Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM): Stakeholder Perceptions and Priorities
Community Health Worker Assessment and Improvement Matrix (CHW AIM): A Toolkit for Improving CHW Programs and Services
A key element of USAID’s strategic approach to maternal and child health (MCH) is to increase the number of functional community health workers serving in USAID priority countries by at least 100,000 by 2013. At the request of the USAID MCH team, the Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) developed a tool that defines a set of key elements needed for community health worker … [Read more...] about Community Health Worker Assessment and Improvement Matrix (CHW AIM): A Toolkit for Improving CHW Programs and Services

