The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa demonstrates key deficiencies in investment in health systems. Despite some modest investment in health systems, our field has instead largely chosen to pursue shorter-term, vertical efforts to more rapidly address key global health issues such as smallpox, polio, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. While those efforts have yielded … [Read more...] about It’s not Ebola…it’s the systems
Journal articles
An Action Guide on Community Health Workers (CHWs): Guidance for the CHW Workforce
This guide may be helpful to members, or prospective members, of the CHW workforce in a variety of ways. It summarizes evidence-based best practices that CHWs should seek to adopt or reinforce in their work with patients and families. It delineates possible quality indicators for high-quality CHW programs. This guide also provides background on key state policy … [Read more...] about An Action Guide on Community Health Workers (CHWs): Guidance for the CHW Workforce
An Action Guide on Community Health Workers (CHWs): Guidance for Organizations Working With CHWs
This guide provides information that may be helpful in various ways for organizations considering the employment of CHWs. It summarizes evidence-based best practices that organizations may wish to adopt or reinforce. It delineates possible quality indicators for high-quality CHW programs that may be used in discussions with payers. It provides background on key … [Read more...] about An Action Guide on Community Health Workers (CHWs): Guidance for Organizations Working With CHWs
A Community Health Worker “logic model”: towards a theory of enhanced performance in low- and middle-income countries
The purpose of this paper is to promote early and continuous causal thinking as decision makers design, implement, scale up, and evaluate CHW and other programs that are intended to positively affect the public’s health. The methods section describes how the generic CHW logic model was constructed, drawing explicitly on research … [Read more...] about A Community Health Worker “logic model”: towards a theory of enhanced performance in low- and middle-income countries
Taking knowledge for health the extra mile: participatory evaluation of a mobile phone intervention for community health workers in Malawi
In Malawi, where the majority of the population resides in rural areas, community health workers (CHWs) are the first, and often only, providers of health services. An assessment of health information needs, however, found that these frontline workers often lacked essential health information. A pilot project, implemented in 2 rural districts of Malawi between 2010 and 2011, … [Read more...] about Taking knowledge for health the extra mile: participatory evaluation of a mobile phone intervention for community health workers in Malawi