Learning by doing in practice: a roundtable discussion about stakeholder engagement in implementation research.

Background: Researchers and policy-makers alike increasingly recognise the importance of engaging diverse perspectives in implementation research. This roundtable discussion presents the experiences and perspectives of three decision-makers regarding the benefits and challenges of their engagement in implementation research.

Discussion: The first perspective comes from a rural district medical officer from Uganda and touches on the success of using data as evidence in a low-resource setting.

Enhancing governance and health system accountability for people centered healthcare: an exploratory study of community scorecards in Afghanistan.

Background: The premise of patient-centered care is to empower patients to become active participants in their own care and receive health services focused on their individual needs and preferences. Afghanistan has evidenced enormous gains in coverage and utilization, but the quality of care remains suboptimal, as evidenced in the balanced scorecard (BSC) performance assessments. In the United States and throughout Africa and Asia, community scorecards (CSC) have proved effective in improving accountability and responsiveness of services.

Toward universal coverage in Afghanistan: A multi-stakeholder assessment of capacity investments in the community health worker system.

Global efforts to scale-up the community health workforce have accelerated as a result of the growing evidence of their effectiveness to enhance coverage and health outcomes. Reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan integrated capacity investments for community based service delivery, including the deployment of over 28,000 community health workers (CHWs) to ensure access to basic preventive and curative services. The study aimed to conduct capacity assessments of the CHW system and determine stakeholder perspectives of CHW performance.

Can community health workers increase coverage of reproductive health services?

Background: Health services were severely affected during the many years of instability and conflict in Afghanistan. In recent years, substantial increases in the coverage of reproductive health services have been achieved, yet absolute levels of coverage remain very low, especially in rural areas. One strategy for increasing use of reproductive health services is deploying community health workers (CHWs) to promote the use of services within the community and at health facilities.