Equipping community health workers with digital tools for pandemic response in LMICs

Abstract

Background Community health workers (CHWs) are well-positioned to play a pivotal role in fighting the pandemic at the community level. The Covid-19 outbreak has led to a lot of stress and anxiety among CHWs as they are expected to perform pandemic related tasks along with the delivery of essential healthcare services. In addition, movement restrictions, lockdowns, social distancing, and lack of protective gear have significantly affected CHWs’ routine workflow and performance. To optimize CHWs’ functioning, there is a renewed interest in supporting CHWs with digital technology to ensure an appropriate pandemic response. Discussion The current situation has necessitated the use of digital tools for the delivery of Covid-19 related tasks and other essential healthcare services at the community level. Evidence suggests that there has been a significant digital transformation to support CHWs in these critical times such as remote data collection and health assessments, the use of short message service and voice message for health education, use of digital megaphones for encouraging behavior change, and digital contract tracing. A few LMICs such as Uganda and Ethiopia have been successful in operationalizing digital tools to optimize CHWs’ functioning for Covid-19 tasks and other essential health services. Conclusion Yet, in most LMICs, there are some challenges concerning the feasibility and acceptability of using digital tools for CHWs during the Covid-19 pandemic. In most cases, CHWs find it difficult to adopt and use digital health solutions due to lack of training on new digital tools, weak technical support, issues of internet connectivity, and other administrative related challenges. To address these challenges, engaging governments would be essential for training CHWs on user-friendly digital health solutions to improve routine workflow of CHWs during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Psychological Distress among Students in Higher Education: One Year after the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Health-Related Productivity Loss According to Health Conditions among Workers in South Korea

“…Second, although the data collection was based on the panel participants randomly selected, the sample estimate has a limitation in its lack of being reflective of the actual conditions of all workers in the country. For example, the percentage of wage workers aged 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59 and 60 years were 13.1%, 23.9%, 26.4%, 22.7% and 13.9%, respectively, in the nationally representative survey in South Korea [ 36 , 37 ], but our data were obtained from a higher proportion of younger workers. However, we believe that the important health conditions suggested by our study are of significant importance for the entire working population in South Korea.…”

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