This newly released report, titled ‘Practitioner Expertise to Optimise Community Health Systems: Harnessing Operational Insight’ examines how CHWs can successfully be integrated into national health systems, subsequently contributing towards efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage. By using a number of case studies from six organisations (Hope Through Health, Last Mile … [Read more...] about Practitioner Expertise to Optimise Community Health Systems: Harnessing Operational Insight
Evaluation
Zambia’s Community Health Assistants (CHAs)
This brief is an outline of Zambia’s community health assistant (CHA) program detailing the impact of a nationwide salaried cadre of CHWs. The report includes how CHAs are recruited, trained, and deployed in rural areas of Zambia. The impact of CHA programs was found to include: task shifting and uptake of services, evidence-based strategies to recruit high … [Read more...] about Zambia’s Community Health Assistants (CHAs)
Task-shifting impact of introducing a pilot community health worker cadre into Zambia’s public sector health workforce
In 2012, a new cadre of Community Health Assistants (CHAs) were deployed as part of Zambia’s National Community Health Strategy. This study aims to evaluate the impact CHAs have on the volume and type of health services provided. Results show that the addition of CHAs in rural areas increased health service provision shifting the burden of basic health … [Read more...] about Task-shifting impact of introducing a pilot community health worker cadre into Zambia’s public sector health workforce
Implementation of the Community Health Assistant (CHA) Cadre in Zambia: A Process Evaluation to Guide Future Scale-Up Decisions
To improve healthcare access in rural areas, in 2010 the Government of Zambia implemented a national CHW strategy that introduced a new cadre of healthcare workers called community health assistants (CHAs). After 1 year of training the pilot class of 307 CHAs were deployed in September 2012. This paper presents findings from a process evaluation of the barriers and facilitators … [Read more...] about Implementation of the Community Health Assistant (CHA) Cadre in Zambia: A Process Evaluation to Guide Future Scale-Up Decisions
An exploration of facilitators and challenges in the scale-up of a national, public sector community health worker cadre in Zambia: a qualitative study
In 2010, Zambia created a cadre of community health workers called Community Health Assistants (CHAs). This program continues to be scaled up to meet the needs of Zambia’s rural population. This study summarizes the factors that have aided the scale-up of the CHA program as well as the challenges. The study determined that CHAs play a critical … [Read more...] about An exploration of facilitators and challenges in the scale-up of a national, public sector community health worker cadre in Zambia: a qualitative study