Community Health Workers' experiences of a package providing increased support and supervision - a qualitative study of a home visiting model in rural South Africa.

Deploying Community Health Workers is a crucial strategy to improve health at a community level in low and middle income countries. While there is substantial evidence for CHW effectiveness, there is a need for more research on the mechanisms through which these programs work. Understanding CHWs experiences of how programmes function is important.

Does pre-COVID impulsive behaviour predict adherence to hygiene and social distancing measures in youths following the COVID-19 pandemic onset? Evidence from a South African longitudinal study.

Background: Engagement in protective behaviours relating to the COVID-19 pandemic has been proposed to be key to infection control. This is particularly the case for youths as key drivers of infections. A range of factors influencing adherence have been identified, including impulsivity and risk taking.

Predictors of COVID-related changes in mental health in a South African sample of adolescents and young adults.

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially affected the lives of young people living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), leading to poorer short-term mental health outcomes. However, longitudinal data investigating changes in mental health from pre-COVID levels and their predictors are lacking. Our longitudinal sample comprised = 233 young people (mean age: 17.

Are we listening to community health workers? Experiences of the community health worker journey in rural South Africa.

Access to healthcare in developing countries remains a challenge. As a result, task-shifting to community health workers (CHWs) is increasingly used to mitigate healthcare worker shortages. Although there is solid evidence of CHW program effectiveness, less is known about CHWs' experiences of becoming and then working daily as CHWs-information that should play an important role in the design of CHW programs.

Instructive roles and supportive relationships: client perspectives of their engagement with community health workers in a rural south African home visiting program.

Background: Community health worker (CHW) programs have been positioned as a way to meet the needs of those who experience marginalization and inequitable access to health care, and current global health narratives also emphasize their adaptable nature to meet growing health burdens in low-income settings. However, as CHW programs adopt more technical roles, the value of CHWs in building relationships with clients tends to be overlooked. More importantly, these programs are often reframed and redeployed without attending to the interests and needs of program clients themselves.

Associations between parental trauma, mental health, and parenting: A qualitative study in a high-adversity South African community.

Rationale: Research suggests that parenting behaviours are negatively affected by parental trauma. However, thus far, the evidence base has provided limited insight into why this occurs. Further, the available evidence has focused largely on high income contexts (HICs), and we know much less about the experiences of parents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who are frequently coping with multiple adversities.

How do pregnant women and new mothers navigate and respond to challenges in accessing health care? Perspectives from rural South Africa.

Women in low- and middle-income countries and in contexts characterized by inequality face various interpersonal and structural barriers when accessing formal maternal and child health (MCH) services. These barriers persist even in contexts where programs to increase access to services, such as community health worker (CHW) interventions, have been implemented. However, while barriers to accessing care have been extensively documented, less is known about the diverse ways that women respond to, and navigate, these situations.