See related articles by Perry (Care Groups I) and Perry (Care Groups II).
CARE GROUPS VS. PARTICIPATORY WOMEN'S GROUPS
There is a long history of community-level health education and participatory problem solving in global health. From the late 1990s, two such approaches—Care Groups and Participatory Women’s Groups—have been developed and implemented across a variety of settings and have shown promise.
In this issue of GHSP, we have included two papers documenting program experience to date with Care Groups focusing on maternal and child health.1,2 This model involves use of paid facilitators who, during periodic meetings, deliver focused sets of health messages to Care Group members, who are female community volunteers. These community volunteers, in turn, share the messages with neighboring households.
Similar to Care Groups, Participatory Women’s Groups make use of paid facilitators who meet with female community volunteers (Table). But rather than simply passing on specific health messages, the primary emphasis is on participatory learning and action bearing on factors contributing to poor maternal and newborn outcomes in their community. This model was first piloted in the Warmi project in Bolivia,3 which showed reduction in perinatal mortality. Based on this experience, the …