Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Promoting the Health of the Community: Community Health Workers Describing Their Roles, Competencies, and Practice

Despite their fast paced growth and increasing utilization, there is still a lack of community health worker (CHW) training programs, certification and credentialing by state agencies. CHW views and inputs on their roles are also lacking in policy development and in the literature. This book seeks to fill this gap by publishing CHW-authored reports from the field; it informs … [Read more...] about Promoting the Health of the Community: Community Health Workers Describing Their Roles, Competencies, and Practice

Informal occupational roles with the lowest pay and the least power have been dominated by women. Recent findings from Afghanistan showed that male CHWs were praised for their volunteer work while female CHWs doing similar work were not praised as their efforts were viewed “expected” (Najafizada et al. 2019). COVID-19 has further highlighted the gendered nature of the … [Read more...] about Promoting Gender Responsive Policies and Programmes for Community Health Workers: a Gender Analysis Framework

This article explores the growing movement for labor rights for South African community health workers (CHWs). It tracks the emergence of sporadic mobilizations for decent work (supported by local health activist organizations) and the formation of the National Union of Care Workers of South Africa (NUCWOSA) in 2016. The authors of this paper close by offering suggestions for … [Read more...] about “Contract to Volunteer”: South African Community Health Worker Mobilization for Better Labor Protection

The Ministry of Health in Mali included the treatment of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) into integrated community case management activities. This prospective non-randomized community intervention study conducted in Kayes Region of Mali, evaluated two supervision models for treating SAM using community health workers (CHWs). Ultimately, some supervision for CHWs treating … [Read more...] about Impact of Different Levels of Supervision on the Recovery of Severely Malnourished Children Treated by Community Health Workers in Mali

Community health worker (CHW) programs have been positioned to meet the needs of marginalized populations with inequitable access to health care. With increased technical focus on CHW work, the value of CHWs in building relationships with clients tends to be overlooked. More importantly, these programs are often reframed and redeployed without attending to the interests and … [Read more...] about Instructive roles and supportive relationships: client perspectives of their engagement with community health workers in a rural south African home visiting program