Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Leveraging community health workers as vaccinators: a case study exploring the role of Malawi’s Health Surveillance Assistants in delivering routine immunization services

This study highlighted the operational and programmatic characteristics of a functional CHW-led routine immunization program. It included interviews with Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs), HSA supervisors, ministry of health officials, and community members in Malawi. Results from the case study showed HSAs as a high-functioning vaccination cadre, skilled and dedicated to … [Read more...] about Leveraging community health workers as vaccinators: a case study exploring the role of Malawi’s Health Surveillance Assistants in delivering routine immunization services

This study investigated the predictors of CHW knowledge of obstetric and early infant danger signs as well as performance in achieving antenatal care and immunization uptake among their clients. The study found that recency of training and experience were associated with improved CHW knowledge and performance. Clients of CHWs trained through the intervention were 15% more … [Read more...] about Training and experience outperform literacy and formal education as predictors of community health worker knowledge and performance, results from Rongo sub-county, Kenya.

This three-year prospective observational study investigated the impact of a mobile health technology and a train the trainer model on CHW knowledge. At the conclusion of three years, CHWs who advanced trained a new cohort of 25 CHWs using mHealth. The study found that the model was highly effective, with the new cohort of 25 CHWs trained by the original CHWs exhibiting higher … [Read more...] about The Laro Kwo Project: A train the trainer model combined with mobile health technology for community health workers in Northern Uganda

The aim of this review was to evaluate the task shifting roles, interventions, and outcomes for addressing kidney and cardiovascular (CV) health problems within African populations. The findings emphasize the importance of HRH, including the CHW workforce, in improving the process of care measures as well as identification, awareness, and treatment of CV and kidney disease in … [Read more...] about Task shifting roles, interventions and outcomes for kidney and cardiovascular health service delivery among African populations: a scoping review

This study investigated the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit of activating Community Health Volunteers (CHV) to address the chronic staff shortage of community health officers in Ghana. It consisted of a cluster-randomized trial of 40 communities. Results show a potential economic strength of activating CHVs for certain activities while other activities were not economically … [Read more...] about Trial-based economic evaluation of the system-integrated activation of community health volunteers in rural Ghana