Community Health Workers

In a typical farmhouse scenario, families live in single-room homes—made of straw, wood, and mud—together with their cattle and other animals. They cook in the same room and do not have latrines or isolated waste disposal facilities. However, Ethiopia’s “model families”—a cornerstone of the country’s successful Health Extension Program (HEP)—build separate kitchens, arrange a place for their cattle outside the family tukul, and dig latrines.

Empowering families with healthy behaviors
Training model families is one of the HEP’s important strategies, and is adapted from Paul Lazarsfeld’s and Everett Rogers’ theories of mass communication and diffusion of innovation. Read more »

On Wednesday, I attended the Global Health Council Conference plenary session entitled "After the Earthquake: Towards Building a New Haitian Health System”, in which the Haitian Minister of Health, the Honorable Dr. Alex Larsen, discussed Haiti’s number one health priority—building the country’s human resources for health.

Dr. Larsen and partners of the Haitian Ministry of Health conveyed the futility of developing infrastructure and obtaining commodities without simultaneously bolstering the health care workforce. He mentioned three cadres of health workers that are currently in particularly high demand: community health workers, midwives, and nurse anesthesiologists. Read more »