Effect of Facilitation of Local Maternal-and-Newborn Stakeholder Groups on Neonatal Mortality: Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Lars Åke Persson and colleagues conduct a cluster randomised control in northern Vietnam to analyze the effect of the activity of local community-based maternal-and-newborn stakeholder groups on neonatal mortality. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary

Strengthening Malaria Service Delivery through Supportive Supervision and Community Mobilization in an Endemic Indian Setting: An Evaluation of Nested Delivery Models

“…The involvement of women's groups in the intervention may have further facilitated prompt care-seeking among women and children, although the present study is unable to explicitly test this channel of impact. The deployment of female CHWs and women's groups in community health management is likely reflected in terms of community health awareness and behaviour [30][31][32][33]. The community's health-seeking pattern for fever distinctly shifted from untrained to trained providers, which suggests the potential for minimizing inappropriate treatment regimens, catastrophic health expenses and consequent fatalities [3,10].…”

“…The thrust of the intervention was to identify and empower local stakeholders especially CBOs and women's groups on building up social trust, cohesion, support, mutual capacity building and thereby improving positive health-seeking behaviour [35,36]. Locally constituted women's groups are wellpoised to be cost-effective and sustainable change makers for community mobilization and gradual behaviour changes [30,31,33].…”

How Single Is "Single" - Some Pragmatic Reflections on Single Versus Multifaceted Interventions to Facilitate Implementation Comment on "Translating Evidence Into Healthcare Policy and Practice: Single Versus Multifaceted Implementation Strategies – Is There a Simple Answer to a Complex Question?"

“…In another study, performed in Vietnam between 2008 and 2011, we have identified a facilitation intervention in multistakeholder community groups that worked in terms of substantially decreasing neonatal mortality. 8 Similar to our previous example, this intervention could also be characterised as a single component: facilitation of multistakeholder community groups. However, the efforts and activities of these groups to reduce neonatal mortality would have to be characterised as nothing but single.…”

Child survival revolutions revisited – lessons learned from Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Rwanda and Vietnam

“…In Vietnam, as well as in other Asian countries, intervention studies have shown that participatory approaches to community engagement can solve some of the local problems that threaten perinatal survival and thereby reduce neonatal mortality and increase equity in survival 30, 31, 32, 33. A number of organisations have played important roles in the child health revolutions in these countries, including the civil society and nongovernmental organisations in Bangladesh 23, the strong Women's Union in Vietnam 30 and communities that have engaged in development and welfare in Rwanda 6.…”