Effectiveness of a chatbot in improving the mental wellbeing of health workers in Malawi during the COVID-19 pandemic: A randomized, controlled trial.

We conducted a randomized, controlled trial (RCT) to investigate our hypothesis that the interactive chatbot, Vitalk, is more effective in improving mental wellbeing and resilience outcomes of health workers in Malawi than the passive use of Internet resources. For our 2-arm, 8-week, parallel RCT (ISRCTN Registry: trial ID ISRCTN16378480), we recruited participants from 8 professional cadres from public and private healthcare facilities. The treatment arm used Vitalk; the control arm received links to Internet resources.

Return on investments in the Health Extension Program in Ethiopia.

Background: Since 2003, the government of Ethiopia has trained and deployed more than 42,000 Health Extension Workers across the country to provide primary healthcare services. However, no research has assessed the return on investments into human resources for health in this setting. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the return on investment within the context of the Ethiopian Health Extension Program.

Malaria prevalence and associated risk factors in Eritrea.

A parasitological cross-sectional survey was undertaken from September 2000 through February 2001 to estimate the prevalence of malaria parasitemia in Eritrea. A total of 12,937 individuals from 176 villages were screened for both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax parasite species using the OptiMal Rapid Diagnostic Test. Malaria prevalence was generally low but highly focal and variable with the proportion of parasitemia at 2.

The challenge of developing community profiles for use in community health assessment: lessons from Michigan's experience.

In Michigan, a number of steps have been undertaken to revitalize a key public health function--community health assessment. This article reports on the activities of these initiatives, focusing on the beginning stage of the community health assessment process--the development of community health profiles. The findings and lessons learned from Michigan's experience, although state specific, appear to have broad applicability to the entire local public health community.

Setting priorities for the Children's Vaccine Initiative: a cost-effectiveness approach.

To help the Children's Vaccine Initiative (CVI) achieve its goal of new and improved children's vaccines, we developed and applied a cost-effectiveness model to set priorities for vaccine development. The model measures the health benefits in additional Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) gained by the combined birth cohorts of all developing countries over an assumed useful life of a proposed vaccine (generally 10 years). It measures costs as the net cost of developing, procuring, and administering the vaccine to the same population and time frame compared to the status quo (the current vaccine, if any).