Background: Global interest and investment in close-to-community health services is increasing. Kenya is currently revising its community health strategy (CHS) alongside political devolution, which will result in revisioning of responsibility for local services. This article aims to explore drivers of policy change from key informant perspectives and to study perceptions of … [Read more...] about Exploring perceptions of community health policy in Kenya and identifying implications for policy change
Kenya
Kisumu Final Report
Kenya’s third largest city, Kisumu, serves as a trading and transportation hub for west- ern Kenya and bears the dubious distinction of having Kenya’s worst set of health indicators and one of the nation’s highest poverty levels. While much work lies ahead for Kisumu to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the City, in coordination with major development partners … [Read more...] about Kisumu Final Report
Improving Maternal and Newborn Health: Effectiveness of a Community Health Worker Program in Rural Kenya
Volunteer community health workers (CHWs) form an important element of many health systems, and in Kenya these volunteers are the foundation for promoting behavior change through health education, earlier case identification, and timely referral to trained health care providers. This study examines the effectiveness of a community health worker project conducted in rural … [Read more...] about Improving Maternal and Newborn Health: Effectiveness of a Community Health Worker Program in Rural Kenya
Working with Community Health Workers as ‘volunteers’ in a vaccine trial: Practical and ethical experiences and implications
Community engagement is increasingly emphasized in biomedical research, as a right in itself, and to strengthen ethical practice. We draw on interviews and observations to consider the practical and ethical implications of involving Community Health Workers (CHWs) as part of a community engagement strategy for a vaccine trial on the Kenyan Coast. CHWs were initially engaged as … [Read more...] about Working with Community Health Workers as ‘volunteers’ in a vaccine trial: Practical and ethical experiences and implications
The influence of observation and setting on community health workers’ practices.
This study aims to determine whether results from an evaluation that involved observation of community health workers while they performed patient consultations in a hospital reflected normal everyday practices. We found that community health workers made treatment errors less frequently when they were observed in a hospital in-patient or outpatient department than when they … [Read more...] about The influence of observation and setting on community health workers’ practices.
