More articles from ORIGINAL ARTICLE
- Designing and Evaluating Scalable Child Marriage Prevention Programs in Burkina Faso and Tanzania: A Quasi-Experiment and Costing Study
Minimal, low-cost approaches can be effective in delaying child marriage and increasing school attendance. Program managers should consider the cost, quality, and coverage of interventions, especially because child marriage persists in the most hard-to-reach, rural areas of many countries.
- Diagnostic Utility and Impact on Clinical Decision Making of Focused Assessment With Sonography for HIV-Associated Tuberculosis in Malawi: A Prospective Cohort Study
Among patients with HIV and with probable/confirmed TB, using the focused assessment with sonography for HIV-associated TB (FASH) protocol led to a 5-fold increase in the clinician's decision to initiate TB treatment on that day. FASH is a supplementary tool that can help clinicians diagnose patients with HIV-associated TB at the point-of-care and reduce delays in their treatment, particularly when access to other diagnostics is limited or unavailable.
- Coaching Intensity, Adherence to Essential Birth Practices, and Health Outcomes in the BetterBirth Trial in Uttar Pradesh, India
Frequent coaching was associated with increased adherence to evidence-based essential birth practices among birth attendants but not with improved maternal and perinatal health outcomes in the BetterBirth Trial, which assessed the impact of a complex intervention to implement the World Health Organization's Safe Childbirth Checklist. To promote sustainable behavior change, future coaching-based interventions may need to explore cost-effective, feasible mechanisms for providing more frequent coaching delivered with high coverage among health care workers for longer durations.
- A Qualitative Assessment of Provider and Client Experiences With 3- and 6-Month Dispensing Intervals of Antiretroviral Therapy in Malawi
Clients with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) perceived the 6-month ART dispensing interval as highly acceptable due to reduced transport costs and increased time for income-generating activities. Providers reported benefits in reduced clinic workload and improved ability to see clients who need more support. Before implementing this dispensing interval on a large scale, countries should conduct further research on how to encourage client health-seeking behaviors for health problems, ensure women have access to family planning services outside of ART clinic visits, and encourage providers to use best practices for counseling messages.
- Two-Way Short Message Service (SMS) Communication May Increase Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Continuation and Adherence Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in Kenya
We evaluated a 2-way short messaging service (SMS) communication platform to improve continuation of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention among Kenyan pregnant and postpartum women who initiated PrEP within routine maternal child health and family planning clinics. SMS increased support for PrEP, provided opportunities for dialogue beyond the clinic, and enabled women to ask and receive answers in real-time, which facilitated continued PrEP use.
- Using Data to Keep Vaccines Cold in Kenya: Remote Temperature Monitoring With Data Review Teams for Vaccine Management
Using technology to make data visible to stakeholders and giving those stakeholders a framework for analyzing that data for decision making improves cold chain management of vaccines in Kenya.
- Effects of a Peer-Led Intervention on HIV Care Continuum Outcomes Among Contacts of Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults Living With HIV in Zimbabwe
An intervention focused on children, adolescents, and young adults living with HIV using a cadre of dedicated peers—community adolescent treatment supporters—led to improvements along the HIV care cascade among their household contacts and sexual partners.
- Standardizing Measurement of Contraceptive Use Among Unmarried Women
Because contraceptive prevalence and unmet need for family planning estimates for unmarried women vary widely depending on the chosen sexual recency inclusion factor, all data platforms should adopt a 1-month window in these calculations to have comparable and actionable estimates.
- Realizing the “40 by 2022” Commitment From the United Nations High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End Tuberculosis: What Will It Take to Meet Rapid Diagnostic Testing Needs?
Existing rapid diagnostics offer faster and more sensitive diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and simultaneous detection of multidrug-resistant TB. A 5-fold increase in investment in these tools is needed to meet the needs of the TB community and the United Nations’ ambitious 40 million by 2022 diagnosis and treatment target.
- Effectiveness of an Electronic Partogram: A Mixed-Method, Quasi-Experimental Study Among Skilled Birth Attendants in Kenya
Use of the electronic partogram, a digital labor-support application, is associated with improved fetal outcomes and greater use of interventions to maintain normal labor compared to the paper partograph.