Consumers Stated and Revealed Preferences for Community Health Workers and Other Strategies for the Provision of Timely and Appropriate Treatment of Malaria in Southeast Nigeria

The African Heads of State meeting in Abuja, Nigeria on Roll Back Malaria adopted effective treatment of malaria nearer the home as one of the strategies for malaria control in Africa. A potentially effective strategy for bringing early, appropriate and low cost treatment of malaria closer to the home is through the use of community health workers (CHWs). There is paucity of information about people’s actual preferences for CHWs and how stated preferences relates to revealed preferences for both the CHW strategy and other strategies for improving the timeliness of malaria treatment in not only Nigeria but in many malaria endemic countries. The objective of this study was to determine peoples’ stated and actual preferences for different strategies for improving the timeliness and appropriateness of treatment of malaria before and after the implementation of a community health workers (CHW) strategy in their community. [from abstract]