Community Interventions

This brief presents an overview of issues related to community health workers and human resources for health along with suggested actions, key considerations, and resources. [from author]

The aim of this study was to explore contemporary lay health worker policy development processes and the extent to which issues of gender are taken up within this process. [from abstract]

This study reviews experiences and lessons learned regarding monetary and non-monetary incentives for community workers. It includes indicative costings and recommendations for further policy and development with regard to the effective recruitment, training and deployment of community workers in Zambia. [adapted from summary]

This literature review attempted to evaluate the evidence base on the use of task-shifting between community health workers and mid-level providers to increase access to family planning and reproductive health. [adapted from author]

This policy brief addresses the role of partnerships between health workers and the community, for the purposes of improving maternal, newborn and child health in resource-constrained settings, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region. [from author]

This policy brief summarises the critical workforce issues
highlighted from a review of the literature of maternal,
newborn and child health services at community
level, with a particular focus on the Asia Pacific region. [from author]

The objectives of this study were to estimate the economic value of community health workers (CHW), current CHW’s workload and responsibilities, and to obtain a preliminary understanding of CHWs’ opinions of the role they serve in their communities (job satisfaction) and how these services are viewed by members of their communities. [adapted from summary]

This study examined the feasibility of using community health workers to implement cardiovascular disease prevention programs within faith-based organizations in Accra, Ghana. [from abstract]

This paper describes a systematically developed intervention for a lay health worker delivered, community-based intervention for schizophrenia care in three sites in India. [adapted from abstract]

This report summarizes a quality assurance project and explains how citizens were engaged at the facility level in improving health service quality, while also contributing to increased responsiveness and accountability on the part of health providers. [adapted from author]

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Papua New Guinea: their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from author]

As part of a community-based package of maternal-neonatal health care, community health workers (CHWs) were trained to conduct household surveillance and to identify and refer sick newborns according to a clinical algorithm. Assessments of newborns by CHWs at home were linked to hospital-based assessments by physicians, and factors impacting referral, referral compliance and outcome were evaluated. [from author]

This article evaluates a pilot project to examine the feasibility of an innovative three-tiered network of community-based providers for delivery of maternal health interventions in the complex emergency setting of eastern Burma. [adapted from author]

As the primary link between the formal health care sector and the household level in South Africa, community health workers (CHWs) provide a critical perspective on barriers
that exist in rural health care delivery. The results of this study suggest that CHWs recognize the need for HIV/AIDS- and TB-related interventions but are unable to provide a response commensurate to this need. [from abstract]

This review examines the use of various categories of community health workers as first line health workers in dealing, for example, with maternal and child health, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other issues throughout Africa. [from author]

A community-based project to increase community awareness about primary prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) was implemented in an urban township of Cape Town. The aims of project were to utilise community health workers as change agents in their community and to develop a NCD model for an urban township community. [adapted from author]

Based on lessons learned from Tanzania, this resource advocates for the integration of community health workers (CHWs) into the revised HRH strategic framework, including the development of new strategies to enable CHWs to contribute more effectively to improved maternal and newborn health outcomes. [adapted from author]

This webinar’s presentation includes: defining the community health worker (CHW), case study of a CHW, CHW core roles and competencies, core values and code of ethics, and CHW-health educator partnership opportunities. [from author]

This article argues that community health workers can connect people to health care and collect information relevant to policy. As a result of direct interaction with the populations they serve, they can recount the realities of exclusion and propose remedies for it, contribute to best practices, and inform public policy. [adapted from abstract]

This study was undertaken to make a clear needs assessment, define priorities and identify resources to plan appropriate continuing education programs and prepare reference materials for health workers, particularly with the deployment of 30,000 health extension workers which will create additional information access needs in Ethiopia. [adapted from abstract]

The study focuses on the first batch of Ethiopian Health Extension Workers (HEWs) with the overall objective of assessing the working conditions of HEWs and their job satisfaction. [from abstract]

This document highlights four community-based health delivery strategies that have demonstrated improvements in child health in high-mortality, low-resource settings and supports the growing recognition that community programs that reach beyond the walls of health care facilities and involve community members as partners have a great potential for further reducing child mortality at low cost. [adapated from author]

This learning resource package contains the trainer manual with all the material to design and hold a traning course for community health workers on postpartum family planing methods and counselling skills. It also has a participant manual for use during the training.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of a multi-strategic practice change intervention in increasing clinician’s routine provision of preventive care across a network of community health services. [from abstract]

This paper uses a decision mathematical model to estimate the relative effectiveness of two alternative strategies, mobile clinics and fixed community-based health services, for antibiotic treatment of childhood pneumonia, the world’s leading cause of child mortality. [from abstract]

Cambodia recently scaled up their Village Malaria Worker (VMW) project by substantially increasing the number of VMWs and expanding the project’s health services to include treatment of fever, diarrhoea, and acute respiratory infections in children under five. This study examined if the scale-up interfered with VMWs’ service quality, actions, and knowledge of malaria control, and analysed VMWs’ overall achievements and perceptions of the newly added health services. [from abstract]

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Timor-Leste: their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Cambodia; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

This study aims to clarify the level of job satisfaction of Chinese community health workers between a metropolitan and a small city in Liaoning province and explore its associated factors. [from abstract]

Scott Radloff, director of USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health, talks about successful strategies to bring integrated health services to communities in need. [from publisher]