Latest Articles
- Practical Implications of Policy Guidelines: A GIS Model of the Deployment of Community Health Volunteers in Madagascar
Geographic information systems can be used to support informed decisions about practical issues related to implementing community health worker (CHW) programs. Demands placed on CHWs regarding expected population and surface area coverage and travel time to facilities need to be carefully considered to ensure they are rational and realistic.
- Private Providers’ Experiences Implementing a Package of Interventions to Improve Quality of Care in Kenya: Findings From a Qualitative Evaluation
Although private providers felt that social franchising, quality improvement interventions, and accreditation helped them to increase the quantity and quality of services in their facilities, the quality improvement process was viewed as prohibitively expensive, and the accreditation process often was complex and difficult to navigate without outside assistance.
- The All Babies Count Initiative: Impact of a Health System Improvement Approach on Neonatal Care and Outcomes in Rwanda
A health system improvement program combining facility readiness support, clinical training/mentoring, and improvement collaboratives increased quality improvement capacity, improved maternal and newborn quality of care, and reduced neonatal mortality. These results can be used to inform system improvement approach design to transform quality of care and outcomes for newborns.
- Matching Development of Point-of-Care Diagnostic Tests to the Local Context: A Case Study of Visceral Leishmaniasis in Kenya and Uganda
We provide a new protocol to connect how findings from field research on the local health care setting in resource-limited regions can inform researchers that are working toward developing a new point-of-care diagnostic test for neglected tropical diseases.
- Using Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to Promote Patient-Centered Practice: Building Capacity Among Pediatric Physiotherapists in Rwanda
Tracking outcomes is integral to assessing effectiveness of health systems. Multimodal training was offered in the use of a contextually appropriate, patient-centered outcome measure in a low-resource setting. Results offer insights for designing future capacity-building programs.
- A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the Drivers of HIV Status Knowledge in Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Mozambique
We identified combinations of modifiable factors that HIV programs supporting orphans, vulnerable children, and their families may be able to act on to increase the proportion of beneficiaries who know their HIV status.
- Factors Associated With Delayed Contraceptive Implant Removal in Ethiopia
Women receiving implant insertion at the community level were significantly more likely to report keeping their implant for more than 3 years. Even when a referral or back-up system for removals existed, efforts to task-shift the provision of contraceptive implants may have inadvertently led to extended implant use.
- Bringing Greater Precision to Interactions Between Community Health Workers and Households to Improve Maternal and Newborn Health Outcomes in India
We identified how the quantity and quality of actions taken by community health workers can be refined to move from a one-size-fits-all model to a precision approach that stands to benefit the health of the mothers and newborns they support.
- Community Ownership in Primary Health Care—Managing the Intangible
Although enduringly intangible, community ownership is foundational to primary health care. This intangibility is a reminder of what programs can and should do (create space for dialogue, question their own choices, expand diversity in stakeholder voices making sense of program-induced changes, including through evaluation) and what they cannot do (manage someone else’s ownership).