Good Management Practice Is Correlated With Good Performance of Community-Engaged Primary Health Care Facilities in Peru.

Background: Increasing prioritization of quality primary health care (PHC) includes community engagement as a key element to improve PHC performance. We assessed the correlation of good regional management practices with PHC performance in Peru in community-comanaged PHC that is designed with multiple accountability mechanisms.

Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of a survey of Dirección Regional de Salud (regional health directorates, DIRESAs) regarding their management of public PHC services with collaborative community involvement by a Comunidad Local de Administración de Salud (Local Community for Health Administration, CLAS).

Acoustic regularities in infant-directed speech and song across cultures.

When interacting with infants, humans often alter their speech and song in ways thought to support communication. Theories of human child-rearing, informed by data on vocal signalling across species, predict that such alterations should appear globally. Here, we show acoustic differences between infant-directed and adult-directed vocalizations across cultures.

Regarding "A Cluster-Randomized Trial to Test Sharing Histories as a Training Method for Community Health Workers in Peru".

Improving communication between mothers and health systems will grow cost-effective, potentially scalable health impact. By developing an approach of how health systems and mothers can communicate to increase mutual understanding, a "health language" that is grounded in mothers' reproductive life narratives can be developed to help bridge the long-standing gap in how health systems and mothers engage.

A Cluster-Randomized Trial to Test Sharing Histories as a Training Method for Community Health Workers in Peru.

Background: Community health workers (CHWs) are increasingly deployed to support mothers' adoption of healthy home practices in low- and middle-income countries. However, little is known regarding how best to train them for the capabilities and cultural competencies needed to support maternal health behavior change. We tested a CHW training method, Sharing Histories (SH), in which CHWs recount their own childbearing and childrearing experiences on which to build new learning.

From Working in the Wheat Field to Managing Wheat: Women Innovators in Nepal.

There is very little research on women in wheat in Nepal, and wheat is still considered a 'man's crop'. Consequently, extension services rarely target women, and women are not considered as innovators. However, research conducted in the Terai plains in 2014/15 shows that women are innovating in wheat to the extent that wheat farming is experiencing a shift from feminisation of agricultural labour towards women taking control over decision-making.

Sharing Histories-a transformative learning/teaching method to empower community health workers to support health behavior change of mothers.

Background: One of the keys to improving health globally is promoting mothers' adoption of healthy home practices for improved nutrition and illness prevention in the first 1000 days of life from conception. Customarily, mothers are taught health messages which, even if simplified, are hard to remember. The challenge is how to promote learning and behavior change of mothers more effectively in low-resource settings where access to health information is poor, educational levels are low, and traditional beliefs are strong.

Institutionalizing community-focused maternal, newborn, and child health strategies to strengthen health systems: A new framework for the Sustainable Development Goal era.

Background: Stronger health systems, with an emphasis on community-based primary health care, are required to help accelerate the pace of ending preventable maternal and child deaths as well as contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The success of the SDGs will require unprecedented coordination across sectors, including partnerships between public, private, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). To date, little attention has been paid to the distinct ways in which NGOs (both international and local) can partner with existing national government health systems to institutionalize community health strategies.