Results: 3069
Barriers to Advanced Education for Indigenous Australian Health Workers: An Exploratory Study (2009)
This study assesses the career goals of local Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) and community stakeholders to identify barriers to undertaking advanced health education. It uses open-ended interviews with nine participants in two communities in Northwest Queensland, Australia and found that, although interest in careers like medicine and nursing were expressed,Read more…
Are vaccination programmes delivered by lay health workers cost-effective? A systematic review (2009)
This is a systematic review of the costs and cost-effectiveness of using community health workers in vaccination programmes. The review only identified three studies that met their inclusion criteria. Methodologically, the studies were strong but did not adequately address affordability and sustainability and were also highly heterogeneous in terms ofRead more…
Increasing access to Family Planning (FP) and Reproductive Health (RH) services through task-sharing between CHWs and community mid-level professionals in large-scale public-sector programs: A Literature Review to Help Guide Case Studies (2011)
CHW programs throughout the world vary in structure and emphasis. This literature review addresses the challenge of making connections among inputs, processes and outcomes of these diverse community programs. Completed as part of the USAID-funded project of the same name, it analyses 78 of the most useful documents on CHWRead more…
Primary Health Care for Remote Village Communities in Honduras: A Model for Training and Support of Community Health Workers (2009)
This article presents a model for the development of sustainable primary health care in village communities in Honduras through the training and support of CHWs. The model, piloted in Comayagua, follows a “bottom-up” approach. A training curriculum for CHWs was developed that addressed the area’s predominant health problems and madeRead more…
Community Health Worker Programs: A Review of Recent Literature (2010)
This paper reviews recently published literature on community health worker programs, primarily focusing on maternal and newborn child health. Eighteen CHW programs and eleven relevant articles were included. It identifies key components of successful CHWs programs, reviews past successes and failures of CHW program implementation and summarizes important lessons learned.
Community Health Worker Code of Ethics Toolkit (2008)
This toolkit is designed to guide professional CHW organizations through the process of developing and adopting a code of ethics. Having a code of ethics can enhance CHWs’ relationships with the community, promote professionalism, legitimize CHWs as members of health care teams and provide guidance in solving ethical quandaries. TheRead more…
Reducing Malnutrition and Child Deaths Using Care Groups (2009)
This is an audio and slide presentation from 2009 by the director of health programs at Food for the Hungry (FH), Thomas P. Davis Jr. In it, Davis discusses FH’s utilization of “care groups” to reduce malnutrition and child deaths in Mozambique. The care group method, developed by World Relief,Read more…
Community-Based Access to Injectable Contraceptives Toolkit (2011)
This toolkit provides a variety of resources that form a platform for strengthening organizations’ capacity to promote community-based access to injectable contraceptives and to advocate for national policy and service delivery guidelines. The components of the toolkit address program planning, implementation, evaluation and scale-up. It provides evidence and background materialRead more…
Community case management in Nicaragua: lessons in fostering adoption and expanding implementation (2010)
This article looks at the policy landscape and processes that led to the implementation of a community case management (CCM) for child survival program in Nicaragua. The authors review both the contextual factors that facilitated CCM as well as the challenges, and conclude that continuous monitoring is essential for bothRead more…
Iranian health houses open the door to primary care (2008)
This article reviews Iran’s “Health Houses,” which were conceived and introduced during the country’s 1980-1988 war with Iraq. The health houses are run by trained CHWs, called behvarzan, who provide basic health care to most of the country’s rural population. Female behvarz are typically responsible for child and maternal health,Read more…
Six Guiding Principles of Streamlining Community-based Programs ()
This report summarizes six guiding principles and lessons learned that emerged from the work of an MOH/BASICS team developing a community-based IMCI program in Madagascar. The principles elaborated for streamlining community-based programs are: 1. Action-based messages; 2. Easy-to-use front-line teaching tools; 3. Short skill-based trainings; 4. Engaging large numbers ofRead more…
Shifting tasks to save lives: the example of AMREF-trained clinical officers in Southern Sudan (2013)
This brief report outlines AMREF’s experiences promoting task-shifting among health workers through integrating it into training of clinical officers in southern Sudan. After summarizing the challenges addressed, the policies introduced and the outcomes of the project, AMREF concludes that providing technical support and supportive supervision to the Government of SouthernRead more…
Thailand’s unsung heroes (2008)
This article reports on the important contributions of community health volunteers in the success of primary health care in Thailand. More than 800,000 health volunteers, including Buddhist monks and their temples, work to promote primary health care and health promotion across the country.
Assessment of the Training of the First Intake of Health Extension Workers (2007)
This study assessed the first year of Ethiopia’s Health Extension Worker (HEW) training program, a central component of the Health Extension Program’s (HEP). The authors used a questionnaire and observations on the training program’s inputs, processes, and outputs. They found that the training centers lacked adequate facilities for the HEWRead more…
Moving Towards Best Practice: Documenting and Learning from Existing Community Health/Care Worker Programmes (2007)
This study sought to identify best practices in deployment of community health and care workers (CHWs and CCWs). Studies conducted in each of South Africa’s 9 provinces assessed the extent to which CHW deployment has addressed important health priorities; documented success stories and lessons; and developed an understanding of theRead more…
The role of community health workers in improving child health programmes in Mali (2009)
This article reports on a study assessing the performance of CHWs in the promotion of basic child health services in rural Mali. The study was conducted as a community based cross-sectional survey. Data were collected from 401 child caregivers and 72 CHWs. Analysis showed a positive influence of CHWs onRead more…
Afghanistan- Innovations in Family Planning, The Accelerating Contraceptive Use Project ()
This case study details the “Accelerating Contraceptive Use Project” managed by MSH in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006. Through the project, four Afghan NGOs, MSH and the Ministry of Public Health worked with CHWs to promote various contraceptive methods for birth spacing. Three components helped the project achieve success atRead more…
Tools to Introduce Community Case Management (CCM) of Serious Childhood Infection (2011)
This comprehensive toolkit from Save the Children presents more than 20 integrated tools that can be used to implement integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) strategies to deliver life-saving treatments for common serious childhood infections: pneumonia, newborn sepsis, malaria and diarrhea. The tools offer proven frameworks for training, equipping and supervisingRead more…
Community-Based Intervention to Reduce Neonatal Mortality in Bangladesh (2007)
This report summarizes the implementation and findings of the Project for Advancing the Health of Newborns and Mothers (Projahnmo) in Bangladesh. Projahnmo was conceived to test the effectiveness of two different service delivery models of a community-based maternal and newborn care intervention package provided by CHWs, traditional birth attendants andRead more…
On the front line of primary health care: the profile of community health workers in rural Quechua communities in Peru (2006)
This article profiles CHWs, including health promoters, traditional birth attendants and traditional healers, serving rural Quechua communities from Ayacucho, Peru. It uses both quantitative and qualitative information from questionnaires, personal interviews and group discussions conducted in 40 communities. The majority of CHWs in Ayacucho are men with limited education whoRead more…
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