Community Health Workers (CHW) are a category of social workers described in many countries’ health systems as responsible for engaging people in their residences and communities, and other non-clinical spaces to enable access to health services, especially in low-income areas. The pandemic imposes unexpected challenges on the usual modes of interaction of public health … [Read more...] about Community health workers’ attitudes, practices and perceptions towards the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazilian low-income communities
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)
A Cluster-Randomized Trial to Test Sharing Histories as a Training Method for Community Health Workers in Peru
Community health workers (CHWs) are increasingly deployed to support adoption of healthy home practices in low- and middle-income countries. However, little is known about how best to train them for the capabilities and cultural competencies needed to support maternal health behavior change. The authors of this article tested a CHW training method, Sharing Histories (SH), in … [Read more...] about A Cluster-Randomized Trial to Test Sharing Histories as a Training Method for Community Health Workers in Peru
Planetary health and the role of community health workers
CHWs can play a significant role in mitigating the impacts of biodiversity loss, climate change, and global noncommunicable diseases on health by providing culturally-relevant education and behavioral interventions. Manas Behera and colleagues performed a review of the literature to understand how CHWs impact these factors on a global scale. The researchers identified four … [Read more...] about Planetary health and the role of community health workers
How COVID-19 Has Affected Frontline Workers in Brazil: A Comparative Analysis of Nurses and Community Health Workers
Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline workers addressed emergency situations by applying their own discretion and utilizing whichever tools were available to support their goals. Gabriela Lotta and colleagues evaluated how decisions made by CHWs were influenced by the early stages of the pandemic between March and July in Brazil. Results indicated that ambiguous federal … [Read more...] about How COVID-19 Has Affected Frontline Workers in Brazil: A Comparative Analysis of Nurses and Community Health Workers
Task-sharing interventions for improving control of diabetes in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Impacts of health system physician shortages in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) can be mitigated by assigning tasks that require limited specialized knowledge to non-physician healthcare workers, including CHWs. Joseph Maria and colleagues reviewed 46 research studies to understand how this so-called “task-sharing” is applied to manage type 2 diabetes in LMICs. … [Read more...] about Task-sharing interventions for improving control of diabetes in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis
