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      Beyond the building blocks: integrating community roles into health systems frameworks to achieve health for all

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      BMJ Global Health
      BMJ

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          Abstract

          Achieving ambitious health goals—from the Every Woman Every Child strategy to the health targets of the sustainable development goals to the renewed promise of Alma-Ata of ‘health for all’—necessitates strong, functional and inclusive health systems. Improving and sustaining community health is integral to overall health systems strengthening efforts. However, while health systems and community health are conceptually and operationally related, the guidance informing health systems policymakers and financiers—particularly the well-known WHO ‘building blocks’ framework—only indirectly addresses the foundational elements necessary for effective community health. Although community-inclusive and community-led strategies may be more difficult, complex, and require more widespread resources than facility-based strategies, their exclusion from health systems frameworks leads to insufficient attention to elements that need ex-ante efforts and investments to set community health effectively within systems. This paper suggests an expansion of the WHO building blocks, starting with the recognition of the essential determinants of the production of health. It presents an expanded framework that articulates the need for dedicated human resources and quality services at the community level; it places strategies for organising and mobilising social resources in communities in the context of systems for health; it situates health information as one ingredient of a larger block dedicated to information, learning and accountability; and it recognises societal partnerships as critical links to the public health sector. This framework makes explicit the oft-neglected investment needs for community health and aims to inform efforts to situate community health within national health systems and global guidance to achieve health for all.

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          Effect of community-based newborn-care intervention package implemented through two service-delivery strategies in Sylhet district, Bangladesh: a cluster-randomised controlled trial.

          Neonatal mortality accounts for a high proportion of deaths in children under the age of 5 years in Bangladesh. Therefore the project for advancing the health of newborns and mothers (Projahnmo) implemented a community-based intervention package through government and non-government organisation infrastructures to reduce neonatal mortality. In Sylhet district, 24 clusters (with a population of about 20 000 each) were randomly assigned in equal numbers to one of two intervention arms or to the comparison arm. Because of the study design, masking was not feasible. All married women of reproductive age (15-49 years) were eligible to participate. In the home-care arm, female community health workers (one per 4000 population) identified pregnant women, made two antenatal home visits to promote birth and newborn-care preparedness, made postnatal home visits to assess newborns on the first, third, and seventh days of birth, and referred or treated sick neonates. In the community-care arm, birth and newborn-care preparedness and careseeking from qualified providers were promoted solely through group sessions held by female and male community mobilisers. The primary outcome was reduction in neonatal mortality. Analysis was by intention to treat. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number 00198705. The number of clusters per arm was eight. The number of participants was 36059, 40159, and 37598 in the home-care, community-care, and comparison arms, respectively, with 14 769, 16 325, and 15 350 livebirths, respectively. In the last 6 months of the 30-month intervention, neonatal mortality rates were 29.2 per 1000, 45.2 per 1000, and 43.5 per 1000 in the home-care, community-care, and comparison arms, respectively. Neonatal mortality was reduced in the home-care arm by 34% (adjusted relative risk 0.66; 95% CI 0.47-0.93) during the last 6 months versus that in the comparison arm. No mortality reduction was noted in the community-care arm (0.95; 0.69-1.31). A home-care strategy to promote an integrated package of preventive and curative newborn care is effective in reducing neonatal mortality in communities with a weak health system, low health-care use, and high neonatal mortality.
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            Effect of handwashing on child health: a randomised controlled trial.

            More than 3.5 million children aged less than 5 years die from diarrhoea and acute lower respiratory-tract infection every year. We undertook a randomised controlled trial to assess the effect of handwashing promotion with soap on the incidence of acute respiratory infection, impetigo, and diarrhoea. In adjoining squatter settlements in Karachi, Pakistan, we randomly assigned 25 neighbourhoods to handwashing promotion; 11 neighbourhoods (306 households) were randomised as controls. In neighbourhoods with handwashing promotion, 300 households each were assigned to antibacterial soap containing 1.2% triclocarban and to plain soap. Fieldworkers visited households weekly for 1 year to encourage handwashing by residents in soap households and to record symptoms in all households. Primary study outcomes were diarrhoea, impetigo, and acute respiratory-tract infections (ie, the number of new episodes of illness per person-weeks at risk). Pneumonia was defined according to the WHO clinical case definition. Analysis was by intention to treat. Children younger than 5 years in households that received plain soap and handwashing promotion had a 50% lower incidence of pneumonia than controls (95% CI (-65% to -34%). Also compared with controls, children younger than 15 years in households with plain soap had a 53% lower incidence of diarrhoea (-65% to -41%) and a 34% lower incidence of impetigo (-52% to -16%). Incidence of disease did not differ significantly between households given plain soap compared with those given antibacterial soap. Handwashing with soap prevents the two clinical syndromes that cause the largest number of childhood deaths globally-namely, diarrhoea and acute lower respiratory infections. Handwashing with daily bathing also prevents impetigo.
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              Effectiveness of community health workers delivering preventive interventions for maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

              Background Community Health Workers are widely utilised in low- and middle-income countries and may be an important tool in reducing maternal and child mortality; however, evidence is lacking on their effectiveness for specific types of programmes, specifically programmes of a preventive nature. This review reports findings on a systematic review analysing effectiveness of preventive interventions delivered by Community Health Workers for Maternal and Child Health in low- and middle-income countries. Methods A search strategy was developed according to the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre’s (EPPI-Centre) guidelines and systematic searching of the following databases occurred between June 8 – 11th, 2012: CINAHL, Embase, Ovid Nursing Database, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and POPLINE. Google, Google Scholar and WHO search engines, as well as relevant systematic reviews and reference lists from included articles were also searched. Inclusion criteria were: i) Target beneficiaries should be pregnant or recently pregnant women and/or children under-5 and/or caregivers of children under-5; ii) Interventions were required to be preventive and delivered by Community Health Workers at the household level. No exclusion criteria were stipulated for comparisons/controls or outcomes. Study characteristics of included articles were extracted using a data sheet and a peer tested quality assessment. A narrative synthesis of included studies was compiled with articles being coded descriptively to synthesise results and draw conclusions. Results A total of 10,281 studies were initially identified and through the screening process a total of 17 articles detailing 19 studies were included in the review. Studies came from ten different countries and consisted of randomized controlled trials, cluster randomized controlled trials, before and after, case control and cross sectional studies. Overall quality of evidence was found to be moderate. Five main preventive intervention categories emerged: malaria prevention, health education, breastfeeding promotion, essential newborn care and psychosocial support. All categories showed some evidence for the effectiveness of Community Health Workers; however they were found to be especially effective in promoting mother-performed strategies (skin to skin care and exclusive breastfeeding). Conclusions Community Health Workers were shown to provide a range of preventive interventions for Maternal and Child Health in low- and middle-income countries with some evidence of effective strategies, though insufficient evidence is available to draw conclusions for most interventions and further research is needed.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMJ Global Health
                BMJ Glob Health
                BMJ
                2059-7908
                June 22 2019
                June 2019
                June 22 2019
                June 2019
                : 3
                : Suppl 3
                : e001384
                Article
                10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001384
                3c378da1-de32-40bd-9eec-16d0c690a6c9
                © 2019
                History

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