Scorecard metrics for assessing the extent of integration of community health worker programmes into national health systems

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Scorecard metrics for assessing the extent of integration of community health worker programmes into national health systems
 
Creator Mupara, Lucia M. Mogaka, John J.O. Brieger, William R. Tsoka-Gwegweni, Joyce M.
 
Subject Primary Health Care CHW programmes; integration conceptual framework; health system measurement; integration metrics; sub-Saharan Africa
Description Background: The effectiveness of community health workers (CHWs) in delivering community-based preventive services is often curtailed by inadequate or complete lack of integration of the CHW programmes into national health systems. Although literature has defined the context and guidelines for integrating CHW programmes into health systems, indicators to quantitatively assess the extent of integration are inadequately addressed.Aim: This article presents an integration scale – CHW Programme Integration Scorecard Metrics (CHWP-ISM) – for measuring the extent of CHW programme integration into national health systems.Setting: Literature review and policy documents were focused on sub-Saharan Africa, while interview participants were drawn from six African countries.Methods: A deductive–inductive approach to item and measurement scale development was employed. Information obtained from a combination of diverse literature sources, subject matter expert (SME) interviews and documentary abstraction from publicly available policy documents advised item generation for the proposed CHWP-ISM. The study qualitatively captured the sectoral CHW integration, thematically analysed the data and culminated in the quantitative integration metrics.Results: Analysis of the responses from six SMEs and abstraction from policy documents resulted in the compilation of metrics with a total of 100 indicators for the CHWP-ISM scale that could be used to assess the level of CHW programmes integration into national health systems. The indicators were categorised along the six World Health Organization’s (WHO) health systems building blocks. Subject matter expert responses corresponded well with abstracted results from the 18 country CHW programmes, indicating content validity.Conclusion: The proposed scorecard metrics can be used to quantitatively rate the extent of CHW programmes integration into health systems, in an attempt to strengthen health systems to improve health outcomes.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2021-11-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v13i1.2691
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 13, No 1 (2021); 14 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/2691/5068 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/2691/5069 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/2691/5070 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/2691/5083 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/2691/5071
 
Coverage Africa — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2021 Lucia Mungapeyi Mupara, John Jules O. Mogaka, William Robert Brieger, Joyce Mahlako Tsoka-Gwegweni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ADVERTISEMENT