Authors: Kathy Dodworth, Brenda N Mukungu
The traditional model for selecting Community Health Workers (CHWs) involves electing a willing, trusted, educated community member. However, this ideal is rarely practiced. Through life history interviews with CHWs in Isiolo, Kenya, five predominant pathways to community health work were identified: model, handpicked, shadow, outsider, and dispossession. Each pathway, illustrated through CHVs’ stories, reveals complex, context-specific factors shaping who becomes a CHW. These pathways challenge Western-centric views of voluntarism and highlight how structural poverty and limited life chances drive voluntary health labor. The study emphasizes the need for substantial investments in human resources for health to address historical dependencies and undervaluation of this essential work.
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Resource Topic: CHW Challenges, CHW programs
Resource Type: Qualitative
Year: 2023
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
Country: Kenya
Publisher May Restrict Access: No
