Quality of Sick Child-Care Delivered by Community Health Workers in Tanzania.

Background: Community health worker (CHW) interventions to manage childhood illness is a strategy promoted by the global health community which involves training and supporting CHW to assess, classify and treat sick children at home, using an algorithm adapted from the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI). To inform CHW policy, the Government of Tanzania launched a program in 2011 to determine if community case management (CCM) of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea could be implemented by CHW in that country.

Methods: This paper reports the results of an observational study on the CCM service delivery quality of a trial cohort of CHW in Tanzania, called WAJA.

An exploration of the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of professional, multitasked community health workers in Tanzania.

Despite four decades of global experience with community-based primary health care, the strategic details of community health worker (CHW) recruitment, training, compensation, and deployment remain the subject of continuing discussion and debate. Responsibilities and levels of clinical expertise also vary greatly, as well as contrasting roles of public- versus private-sector organisations as organisers of CHW effort. This paper describes a programme of implementation research in Tanzania, known as the Connect Project, which aims to guide national policies with evidence on the impact and process of deploying of paid, professional CHWs.

Profile, knowledge, and work patterns of a cadre of maternal, newborn, and child health CHWs focusing on preventive and promotive services in Morogoro Region, Tanzania.

Background: Despite impressive decreases in under-five mortality, progress in reducing maternal and neonatal mortality in Tanzania has been slow. We present an evaluation of a cadre of maternal, newborn, and child health community health worker (MNCH CHW) focused on preventive and promotive services during the antenatal and postpartum periods in Morogoro Region, Tanzania. Study findings review the effect of several critical design elements on knowledge, time allocation, service delivery, satisfaction, and motivation.

Equally able, but unequally accepted: Gender differentials and experiences of community health volunteers promoting maternal, newborn, and child health in Morogoro Region, Tanzania.

Background: Despite emerging qualitative evidence of gendered community health worker (CHW) experience, few quantitative studies examine CHW gender differentials. The launch of a maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) CHW cadre in Morogoro Region, Tanzania enlisting both males and females as CHWs, provides an opportunity to examine potential gender differences in CHW knowledge, health promotion activities and client acceptability.

Methods: All CHWs who received training from the Integrated MNCH Program between December 2012 and July 2013 in five districts were surveyed and information on health promotion activities undertaken drawn from their registers.

Motivation and satisfaction among community health workers in Morogoro Region, Tanzania: nuanced needs and varied ambitions.

Background: In 2012, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW), Tanzania, approved national guidelines and training materials for community health workers (CHWs) in integrated maternal, newborn and child health (Integrated MNCH), with CHWs trained and deployed across five districts of Morogoro Region soon after. To inform future scale up, this study assessed motivation and satisfaction among these CHWs.

Methods: A survey of all CHWs trained by the Integrated MNCH Programme was conducted in the last quarter of 2013.