Authors: Sarah Smith, Amber Deveridge, Joshua Berman, Joel Negin, Nwaka Mwambene, Elizabeth Chingaipe, Lisa M Puchalski Ritchie and Alexandra Martiniuk
As low- and middle-income countries face continued shortages of human resources for health and the double burden of infectious and chronic diseases, there is renewed international interest in the potential for community health workers to assume a growing role in strengthening health systems. A growing list of tasks, some of them complex, is being shifted to community health workers’ job descriptions. Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) – as the community health worker cadre in Malawi is known – play a vital role in providing essential health services and connecting the community with the formal health care sector.
The objective of this study was to understand the performed versus documented roles of the HSAs, to examine how tasks were prioritized, and to understand HSAs’ perspectives on their roles and responsibilities.
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Resource Topic: CHW Role, Community Health Workers/Volunteers, Human Resources Management/Workforce Development, Policy, Task shifting
Resource Type: Research
Year: 2014
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
Country: Malawi
Publisher May Restrict Access: No