This paper explored teacher and community-based health worker experiences in addressing adolescent sexual, reproductive, health and rights (SRHR) in rural health systems in Zambia through 21 qualitative in-depth interviews. Teachers and community-based health workers mobilise the community for meetings, provide SRHR counselling services to both adolescents and guardians, and strengthen referrals to SRHR services if needed. The challenges experienced included stigmatization associated with difficult experiences such as sexual abuse and pregnancy, shyness among girls to participate when discussing SRHR in the presence of boys and myths about contraception. The suggested strategies for addressing the challenges included creating safe spaces for adolescents to discuss SRHR issues and engaging adolescents in coming up with the solution. The study emphasizes the need to fully engage adolescents in addressing adolescent SRHR problems.
Human Resources
This study explored health workers’ perceptions of clinic- and community-level stigma against adolescent girls and young women seeking HIV and sexual and reproductive health services in Lusaka, Zambia. The authors conducted 18 in-depth interviews in August 2020 with clinical and non-clinical health workers across six health facilities in urban and peri-urban Lusaka. Health workers reported observing stigma driven by attitudes, awareness, and institutional environment. Clinic-level stigma often mirrored community-level stigma. Health workers described the negative impacts of stigma for adolescent girls and young women and expressed a desire to avoid stigmatization. Despite this lack of intent to stigmatize, results suggest that community influence perpetuates stigma, although often unrecognized and unintended, in health workers and clinics. These findings demonstrate the overlap in health workers’ clinic and community roles and suggest the need for multi-level stigma-reduction approaches that address the influence of community norms on health facility stigma. The authors propose that stigma-reduction interventions should aim to move beyond fostering basic knowledge to encouraging critical thinking about internal beliefs and community influence and how these may manifest in service delivery to adolescent girls and young women.
The report offers the first global dataset of labour protests of key workers during the pandemic. It focusses on two sectors, healthcare and retail. The results show that, overall, despite large volumes of protest over acute COVID-related problems such as the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the main concern of protesting workers during the pandemic was their pay. Collective action accompanying demands for pay rises involved not only the withdrawal of labour, but also demonstrations and leverage tactics. Health and safety was the second most important concern, and protests linked to these demands did not cease when the pandemic became less deadly. Protest spiked during the initial March 2020 lockdowns, before continuing at a lower level throughout the pandemic. The report identifies important variation between countries and sectors, and highlights specific local contingencies, and strategic decisions taken by workers and their unions.
This study estimated the prevalence of burnout among primary health-care professionals in low- and middle-income countries and factors associated with burnout. The authors systematically searched nine databases up to February 2022 to identify studies investigating burnout in primary health-care professionals in low- and middle-income countries. Three studies collected data during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic but provided limited evidence on the impact of the disease on burnout. The overall single-point prevalence of burnout ranged from 2.5% to 87.9%, the pooled prevalence of a high level of emotional exhaustion was 28.1%, and a high level of reduced personal accomplishment was 31.9%. The authors note that a high prevalence of burnout among primary health-care professionals in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Africa, has implications for patient safety, care quality and workforce planning and call for further evidence-based assessment to inform solutions..
In this qualitative study, the authors aimed to understand how tuberculosis (TB) health workers and other stakeholders viewed mental health conditions linked to TB and how they screened and treated these in their patients. It was conducted in eight urban communities in Zambia through focus group discussions with local health committee members and TB stakeholders and in-depth interviews with key TB health workers. TB stakeholders and health workers were reported to have an inadequate understanding of mental health and commonly described mental health conditions among TB patients by using stigmatizing terminology and overtones, using for example “madness” to imply a character flaw rather than illness, or describing psychological distress as “overthinking", and not a condition that would benefit from mental health intervention. There were no standard screening and treatment options for mental health conditions in TB patients and most TB health workers had no mental health training, but TB Stakeholders and health workers understood the negative implications of mental health conditions on TB treatment adherence and overall wellbeing for TB patients. The authors propose integrating mental health training in TB services and screening TB patients for mental health conditions followed by care and treatment for those identified with mental health disorders.
This systematic review aimed to synthesise research findings on the Community Health Worker (CHW) effectiveness at reaching the most disadvantaged groups in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) contexts, and in reducing health inequities in the populations they serve. One hundred sixty-seven studies met the search criteria, reporting on CHW interventions in 33 LMIC. Quantitative synthesis showed that CHW programmes successfully reach many (although not all) marginalized groups, but that health inequalities often persist in the populations they serve. Qualitative findings suggest that disadvantaged groups experienced barriers to taking up CHW health advice and referrals and point to a range of strategies for improving the reach and impact of CHW programmes in these groups. Ensuring fair working conditions for CHWs and expanding opportunities for advocacy were also revealed as being important for bridging health equity gaps. In order to optimise the equity impacts of CHW programmes, the authors propose moving beyond seeing CHWs as a temporary sticking plaster, and instead building meaningful partnerships between CHWs, communities and policy-makers to confront and address the underlying structures of inequity.
Community health workers (CHWs) have been a critical part of health care delivery across diverse contexts for over a century. This article argues that a strong and accessible national health system, including at the community level, is critical for pandemic preparedness and response. Community health workers who are equipped, trained, and paid as part of a well-functioning health system can help prevent epidemics from becoming pandemics and maintain health care delivery amid significant disruption. To achieve resilient health systems, bi/multilateral aid and private philanthropies need to review their investment practices to replace those that cause harm (high transaction costs, earmarking, short-termism, appropriation of sovereignty) with practices that ensure timely and effective implementation of priorities set by government stakeholders (pooling, longer commitments, and alignment with evidence-based guidelines).
Few studies have described the Community Health Worker (CHW) perspective on their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in relation to their activities. Data was collected in 8 focus group discussions with 90 CHWs in October 2018 and March–April 2019 in seven purposively selected catchment areas. The results indicate that enabling factors are primarily intrinsic, such as positive patient outcomes, community respect, and recognition by the formal health care system, but that this can lead to the challenge of increased scope and workload. Extrinsic factors such as the increased scope and workload from original expectations, lack of resources for their work, and rugged geography present challenges, but with a positive work environment and supportive relationships between CHWs and supervisors enabling the CHWs. The authors suggest that challenges can be mitigated through focused efforts to limit geographical distance, manage workload, and strengthen CHW support to reinforce their recognition and trust, and by giving focus to enhancing motivational factors in primary health care systems.
This paper investigated maternal and child health care and services during nationwide strikes by health care workers in 2017 from the perspective of pregnant women, community health volunteers, and health facility managers, using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Participants reported that strikes by health care workers significantly impacted the availability and quality of maternal and child health services in 2017 and had indirect economic effects due to households paying for services in the private sector. Participants felt poor households, particularly poor women, were most affected since they were more likely to rely on public services, while community health volunteers highlighted their own poor working conditions. Strikes strained relationships and trust between communities and the health system that were identified as essential to maternal and child health care and highlighted and exacerbated inequities in the health system.
This study explored the intersecting geographical, ecological and social factors affecting access to health care in a social epidemiology analysis in Uganda, using literature review and an ethnographic exploration of the lived experiences of community members while seeking and accessing health care, understanding that health system activities are diverse but interconnected in a complex way. When and how to travel for care was beyond a matter of having a health need/ being sick and need arising. A motivated workforce was found to be as critical as health facilities themselves in determining healthcare outcomes, and geography alone is not a sufficient factor in determining health outcomes..