South Asia

The objective of this study was to assess whether community case management by lady health workers with oral amoxicillin in children with severe pneumonia was equivalent to current standard of care. [from summary]

Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) is a model of care which has been widely used for physical disabilities in resource-poor settings. This study aimed to compare CBR with out-patient care (OPC) for schizophrenia in a resource-poor setting in India to determine if it is a feasible model for treatment in areas without specialized mental health care providers. [adapted from author]

This brief outlines a project whose objective was to have health and family planning field workers from the government and from nongovernmental organizations distribute misoprostol tablets to pregnant women in Tangail District in central Bangladesh, to assess the approach’s effectiveness, and to gather lessons learned and provide recommendations for national scale-up. [adapted from author]

This article presents the results of an evaluation of a project in Pakistan to contribute to learning about the design and implementation of pay-for-performance systems and their impact on health worker motivation. [adapted from abstract]

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

This study examines the effectiveness of a peer-assisted learning initiative developed as a parallel process to fill in gaps in medical students’ understanding and better explain unclear aspects of the formal curriculum. [adapted from abstract]

This study was carried out to measure and compare readiness for self-directed learning (SDL) among medical students, and note differences in readiness for SDL at the beginning and end of the first year for medical students at a medical college in Nepal. [adapted from abstract]

This report examines the current and future availability of skilled health workers for safe delivery services and the factors influencing their retention in government health facilities, particularly in rural areas of Nepal. [from author]

This paper attempts to explore the migration of nurses from India in the context of nursing shortages in the country. It looks at the relationship between the development of the nursing profession in India, shortage of nurses in the country and international migration of Indian nurses. [from introduction]

This article proposes the idea of a new degree course in medicine of a shorter duration to encourage students from rural areas to take up medicine and then provide services in their local areas. [from author]

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of an Afghanistan community midwifery program in Takhar Province, to capture key lessons learnt from the first round of training, and to draw conclusions for future initiatives. [adapted from author]

This paper attempts to fill a knowledge gap in comprehensive data on human resources for health in the formal and informal sectors in Bangladesh through a nationally representative sample survey conducted in 2007. [from abstract]

This article provides key lessons learned from a large-scale community-based efficacy trial of a two-tiered system of community-based workers to deliver a package of essential maternal and newborn-care interventions and one of three umbilical cord-care regimens in Bangladesh.

The objective of the study was to determine the efficacy of training health workers in nutrition counselling in enhancing their communication skills and performance, improving feeding practices, and reducing growth faltering in children aged 6-24 months. [from abstract]

This article describes the National Rural Health Mission of India and the initiatives undertaken to address the lack of skilled service providers in rural areas including an increase in sanctioned posts for public health facilities, incentives, workforce management policies, locality-specific recruitment and the creation of a new service cadre specifically for public sector employment. [adapted from abstract]

This presentation outlines the successful School of Health Science’s Indira Gandhi National Open University program to democratise higher education; provide cost-effective, quality education to a large section of the population; provide higher education to developing countries; and become a pioneer in distance education for health managers and medical educators. [adapted from author]

The objective of this paper is to identify important aspects of health worker satisfaction and motivation in two Indian states working in public and private sectors. [from abstract]

This qualitative study explores the career preferences of under-training and in-service doctors and nurses and identifies factors important to them to take up rural service. It then develops a framework for clustering these complex attributes into potential incentive packages for better rural recruitment and retention. [from abstract]

The high perinatal and neonatal mortality rates in Pakistan are partially attributable to scarcity of trained skilled birth attendants and paucity of resources. Empowerment of health care providers with adequate knowledge and skills can serve as instrument of change. This training needs assessment analysis of the public health sector of Pakistan aims to recognize gaps in the processes and quality of MNCH care provided. [adapted from author]

This study measures levels of stigma within health care settings in urban and rural Gujarat, in an attempt to understand how this may have contributed to the state’s increasing HIV incidence. [from abstract]

This study proposes methods for measuring inequalities in the distribution of health workers in a country by adapting techniques from the economics literature on income inequality to the measurement of health workforce distribution across geographical units. [from summary]

This article analysed the rural doctor shortage in Nepal and reviewed the international literature for strategies that may be suitable for use in Nepal. [from abstract]

This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a computerized Health Management Information System (HMIS) in a rural health system in India. [from abstract]

This brief outlines the lessons learned from a 30 year village health improvement project in rural India that integrated community participation and established the value of village health workers.

This study aimed at identifying the level of HIV-related discriminatory attitudes and related factors in a sample of healthcare workers in Bangladesh. The results indicate that programs to reduce irrational fear about transmission of HIV are urgently needed. [adapted from abstract]

There is little research on HIV awareness and practices of traditional birth attendants (TBA) in India. This study investigated knowledge and attitudes among rural TBA in Karnataka as part of a project examining how traditional birth attendants could be integrated into prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission of HIV programs in India. [from abstract]

Establishing a Public Private Partnership (PPP) requires a legal framework acceptable to all the partners, clarity on the commitment of resources, roles and responsibilities of each partner, as well as accountability to provide a given set of services at a desired level of quality and affordable user charges. This paper describes the design, development and implementation of a PPP for managing urban health services in Ahmedabad city, Gujarat. [adapted from abstract]

The objective of this research was to study prescribing practices of private practitioners in the treatment of tuberculosis, two decades after a similar study conducted in the same geographical area revealed dismal results. [from abstract]

This report documents some of the processes undertaken to integrate gender and sexuality factors into a maternal health project in Uttar Pradesh, India from 2007-2009. [from foreword]

This document reviews the ISOFI program. The iterative steps of this system focus on building staff and organisational capacity to critically analyse the social construction of gender and explore how gender influences personal values and beliefs and programmatic designs and choices. In turn, through the analysis-reflection-action cycle of the ISOFI Innovation System, staff can help community health providers and other stakeholders to analyse gender issues, reflect on local barriers and opportunities, and make implementation plans to catalyze change. [from author]