Benefits and Limitations of a Community-Engaged Emergency Referral System in a Remote, Impoverished Setting of Northern Ghana.

Although Ghana has a well-organized primary health care system, it lacks policies and guidelines for developing or providing emergency referral services. In 2012, an emergency referral pilot-the Sustainable Emergency Referral Care (SERC) initiative-was launched by the Ghana Health Service in collaboration with community stakeholders and health workers in one subdistrict of the Upper East Region where approximately 20,000 people reside. The pilot program was scaled up in 2013 to a 3-district (12-subdistrict) plausibility trial that served a population of approximately 184,000 over 2 years from 2013 to 2015.

A qualitative appraisal of stakeholder reactions to a tool for burden of disease-based health system budgeting in Ghana.

Background: In 2010, the Ghana Health Service launched a program of cooperation with the Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare that was designed to adapt Tanzania's PLANREP budgeting and reporting tool to Ghana's primary health care program. The product of this collaboration is a system of budgeting, data visualization, and reporting that is known as the District Health Planning and Reporting Tool (DiHPART).

Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the design and implementation processes (technical, procedures, feedback, maintenance, and monitoring) of the DiHPART tool in northern Ghana.

The Ghana essential health interventions program: a plausibility trial of the impact of health systems strengthening on maternal & child survival.

Background: During the 1990s, researchers at the Navrongo Health Research Centre in northern Ghana developed a highly successful community health program. The keystone of the Navrongo approach was the deployment of nurses termed community health officers to village locations. A trial showed that, compared to areas relying on existing services alone, the approach reduced child mortality by half, maternal mortality by 40%, and fertility by nearly a birth - from a total fertility rate of 5.

Inconsistent reporting of female genital cutting status in northern Ghana: explanatory factors and analytical consequences.

Although many cross-sectional social surveys have included questions about female genital cutting status and correlated personal characteristics, no longitudinal studies have been launched that permit investigation of response biases associated with such surveys. This study draws upon the findings of a longitudinal study of women aged 15 to 49 in rural northern Ghana. The self-reported circumcision status of women interviewed in 1995 was compared with the status they reported when they were interviewed again in 2000 after the government began enforcing a law banning the practice and public information campaigns against it were launched.