Community Health Worker (CHW) programs have been met with alternating enthusiasm and skepticism by the global health community. Following the Alma Ata declaration, considerable investments were put into training CHWs during the 1970’s and 1980’s, and CHWs were considered central to the “Health for All” agenda. But as time passed, questions arose about the effectiveness,… [ More ]
This June a groundbreaking article was published in PLoS One, confirming not only the success of community health workers (CHWs) in low-resource environments, but also the ways that new mobile health technologies can facilitate the improvement and expansion of CHW programs. The article, “Community Health Workers and Mobile Technology: A Systematic Review of the Literature,”… [ More ]
Half a year ago, the One Million Community Health Workers (1mCHW) Campaign began an initiative to coordinate, expand, and accelerate community health worker (CHW) programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, in order to meet the health related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is a special honor to mark the first six months of the 1mCHW Campaign’s existence…. [ More ]
New campaign aims to transform healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa by deploying 1 million health workers by 2015. DAKAR, Senegal, July 25, 2013: Today, actress Olivia Wilde and RYOT News co-founders David Darg and Bryn Mooser arrived in Senegal to document first-hand the work of the One Million Community Health Workers Campaign, which is working to… [ More ]
Three years ago I was working as a medical doctor in one of the poorest states in Northern Nigeria, with sky-high maternal and child death rates, and even higher rates of preventable disease. My pediatric clinic was the only source of formal and free health care for thousands of indigent children in the city and… [ More ]