Latest Articles
- Remote Sensing of Vital Signs: A Wearable, Wireless “Band-Aid” Sensor With Personalized Analytics for Improved Ebola Patient Care and Worker Safety
This wireless sensor technology, currently being field-tested in an Ebola Treatment Unit in Sierra Leone, monitors multiple vital signs continuously and remotely. When connected with enhanced analytics software, it can discern changes in patients’ status much more quickly and intelligently than conventional periodic monitoring, thus saving critical health care worker time and reducing exposure to pathogens.
- Task Sharing Implant Insertion by Community Health Workers: Not Just Can It Work, but How Might It Work Practically and With Impact in the Real World
Demonstrating that a health service, such as providing contraceptive implants, can be safely task shared to less highly trained workers is crucial but is only one step toward effective implementation at scale. Providers need dedicated time, enough clients, supplies, supervision, and other system support, allowing them to maintain their competency, confidence, and productivity.
- Care Groups II: A Summary of the Child Survival Outcomes Achieved Using Volunteer Community Health Workers in Resource-Constrained Settings
Care Group projects resulted in high levels of healthy behavior, including use of oral rehydration therapy, bed nets, and health care services. Accordingly, under-5 mortality in Care Group areas declined by an estimated 32% compared with 11% in areas with child survival projects not using Care Groups.
- Covering the Last Kilometer: Using GIS to Scale-Up Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Services in Iringa and Njombe Regions, Tanzania
Interactive GIS maps created by overlapping facility data including roads and infrastructure with population and service delivery data permitted strategic deployment of mobile voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) services to underserved rural communities. The percentage of VMMCs performed in rural areas jumped from 48% in 2011 to 93% in 2014.
- The Demographic Stretch of the Arc of Life: Social and Cultural Changes That Follow the Demographic Transition
The demographic transition from high to low levels of mortality and fertility brings about changes that stretch the “arc of life,” making each stage of life longer and creating new ones—a phenomenon we call “the demographic stretch.” This stretch can transform societal structure, for example, by extending childhood, shifting working ages up, delaying marriage and childbearing, improving women’s status and equity, and pushing the burden of chronic disease and disability to older ages. Global health efforts must address the resultant economic and social changes.
- Institutional Care of Children in Low- and Middle-Income Settings: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom of Oliver Twist
Whether institutions or extended families are better suited to care for orphans depends on the specific circumstances. Reported rates of traumatic experiences among orphans and vulnerable children are high in both institutions and extended families; improving the quality of care for such children should be the paramount priority in all settings.
- Task Shifting Provision of Contraceptive Implants to Community Health Extension Workers: Results of Operations Research in Northern Nigeria
With training and supportive supervision, male and female Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) in Nigeria safely and effectively provided contraceptive implants, and virtually all clients said they were satisfied. Most CHEWs achieved competency after 5 client insertions. However, the CHEWs provided only an average of 4 insertions per health facility per month. Realizing the true potential of providing implants calls for a context with dedicated providers and robust outreach.
- Successful mLearning Pilot in Senegal: Delivering Family Planning Refresher Training Using Interactive Voice Response and SMS
Health workers’ knowledge of contraceptive side effects increased substantially. The mobile phone approach was convenient and flexible and did not disrupt routine service delivery. Clear limitations of the medium are participants can’t practice clinical skills or have interactive discussions. Also, some participants had trouble with network reception.
- Toward a Systematic Approach to Generating Demand for Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: Insights and Results From Field Studies
Using an analytical framework to design and implement voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programs can lead to more effective interventions, especially when insights are incorporated from disciplines such as behavioral science and commercial market research. Promising VMMC behavior change practices: (1) address individual, interpersonal, and environmental barriers and facilitators; (2) tailor messages to men’s behavior change stage and focus on other benefits besides HIV prevention, such as hygiene and sexual pleasure; (3) include women as a key target audience; (4) engage traditional and religious leaders; (5) use media to promote positive social norms; and (6) deploy community mobilizers to address individual concerns.