More articles from ORIGINAL ARTICLE
- Animal Source Food Social and Behavior Change Communication Intervention Among Girinka Livestock Transfer Beneficiaries in Rwanda: A Cluster Randomized Evaluation
A social and behavior change communication intervention designed to promote consumption of cow’s milk among families that received a cow from a government livestock transfer program increased mothers’ knowledge and awareness of milk consumption. Although intervention exposure was associated with increased frequency of children’s cow’s milk intake, it did not lead to increased consumption or dietary diversity.
- A Mixed-Methods Process Evaluation: Integrating Depression Treatment Into HIV Care in Malawi
Effectively integrating depression treatment into HIV care in low-resource settings will require substantially investing in program supervision, building and maintaining the capacity of providers, integrating into existing electronic medical records systems, and ensuring the availability of psychotherapy counselors.
- Prioritizing Health-Sector Interventions for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries in Low- and Lower-Middle Income Countries: National NCDI Poverty Commissions
Noncommunicable Disease and Injury (NCDI) Poverty Commissions in 16 low- and middle-income countries provided evidence-based recommendations on a local, expanded set of priority NCDIs and health-sector interventions needed in national initiatives to attain universal health coverage. These commissions provide a collective platform for policy, research, and advocacy efforts to improve coverage of cost-effective and equitable health-sector interventions for populations living in extreme poverty.
- Readiness to Provide Antenatal Corticosteroids for Threatened Preterm Birth in Public Health Facilities in Northern India
In settings with limited resources that lack standards to ensure the quality of childbirth and newborn care, the use of antenatal corticosteroids is potentially harmful. Safe, effective use of antenatal corticosteroids requires providing standardized evidence-based practices and supportive supervision, training staff, and a facility-level actionable health information system.
- Negative Incentives for Noninstitutional Births Are Associated With a Higher Rate of Facility-Based Births in the Eastern Visaya Region, Philippines
Penalties imposed for noninstitutional deliveries by local government policies could motivate pregnant women to deliver at birthing facilities; however, local governments should address barriers to accessing a birthing facility in underserved areas before prohibiting noninstitutional deliveries.
- Implementation of a Community Transport Strategy to Reduce Delays in Seeking Obstetric Care in Rural Mozambique
Encouraging local transport programs and transport infrastructure in poorly-resourced communities can help improve community access and strengthen engagement with health systems. Mobilizing community resources and leadership to implement a community-based transport scheme in rural Mozambique to support referrals to health facilities can help improve maternal and child health outcomes.
- Applying the Community Health Worker Coverage and Capacity Tool for Time-Use Modeling for Program Planning in Rwanda and Zanzibar
The C3 Tool supports community health worker (CHW) program planning by making tradeoffs apparent between human resources and the services to be provided at varying levels of population coverage. Governments in Rwanda and Zanzibar used the tool, respectively, to optimize CHW time allocation and to estimate how many CHWs were needed to meet universal health coverage goals.
- Community Health Worker Program Sustainability in Africa: Evidence From Costing, Financing, and Geospatial Analyses in Mali
Understanding specific program costs through efficiency analyses and geospatial targeting allows national stakeholders to make strategic, targeted investments, making the first steps toward sustainability. Costs required for community health worker programs can be reduced without sacrificing quality, and spending can be geographically targeted to optimize service use by rural populations. Results from Mali provide an example for other sub-Saharan African countries.
- Evaluating Vertical Malaria Community Health Worker Programs as Malaria Declines: Learning From Program Evaluations in Honduras and Lao PDR
Community case management by community health workers has substantially reduced malaria across the Greater Mekong Subregion and Central America. To sustain current and achieve further reductions in malaria, surveillance and delivery platforms must be redesigned to ensure their continued use by key populations.
- The Community Health Systems Reform Cycle: Strengthening the Integration of Community Health Worker Programs Through an Institutional Reform Perspective
Efforts to scale community health worker programs within primary health care systems in 7 countries illustrated that these efforts are best understood as a complex process of institutional reform. Successful scale up depends on a problem-driven political process; requires that models develop solutions that align with resources, capabilities, and commitments of key stakeholders; and emerges from iterative cycles of learning and improvement.