The integral role of the Community Health Worker in reconnecting HIV, TB, and Leprosy patients with care and treatment in a health system ravaged by and abandoned in the time of Ebola: An example from Liberia

Abstract

Unfortunately, the number of students trained by new, Haitian instructors was capped at 12 due to space limitations. Concurrently, MS4H certified 39 Haitian medical students new to BLS. Mean BLS certification-exam scores of students taught by Haitian peers and those taught by MS4H were compared using an unpaired t-test.Original Data and Results: Haitian-taught students' mean scores were 90.0% (SD ¼ 10%), compared to 87.6% (SD ¼ 11%) for MS4H-taught students. Of those taught by Haitian peers, two students (16.7%) required remediation compared to 9 students (23.1%) who were taught by MS4H. An unpaired t-test yielded no significant differences between the two groups' scores (p ¼ 0.67). Conclusion:Our results demonstrate that a "Training the Trainers" model, where Haitian medical students are trained as BLS instructors, may be feasible and equivalent to BLS training by American medical students and residents trained as BLS instructors. In future years, larger scale studies need to be done to validate this small pilot study. If validated, this teaching method can advance further sustainable BLS teaching programs at Université Quisqueya and other medical centers in Haiti.

Brazil’s Community Health Workers Practicing Narrative Medicine: Patients’ Perspectives

“…25 The CHWs serve as a liaison between individuals, communities, and health and social services providers; they conduct home visits lasting long periods of time; they are involved with patients' day-to-day care; and they engage in community activism aimed at socio-political changes. 26 CHWs' effectiveness has been well documented, such as reducing health disparities, 27 maternal mortality, 28,29 rates of HIV/AIDS, 30,31 tuberculosis, 32 and malaria. 33 CHWs' influence has been shown to increase uptake of immunizations 34 and cancer screenings 35 and they contribute to the management of asthma, 36 diabetes, 37 and cardiovascular illnesses.…”

“…CHWs’ effectiveness has been well documented, such as reducing health disparities, 27 maternal mortality, 28 , 29 rates of HIV/AIDS, 30 , 31 tuberculosis, 32 and malaria. 33 CHWs’ influence has been shown to increase uptake of immunizations 34 and cancer screenings 35 and they contribute to the management of asthma, 36 diabetes, 37 and cardiovascular illnesses.…”

Studying Executive Directors and Supervisors Views of Organizational and Policy-Level Challenges Faced by Community Health Workers

“…Effectiveness of CHWs within the United States and worldwide has been well documented. CHW successes include reducing health disparities (Mobula et al, 2015), maternal and young child (under 5 years) mortality rates (Edmond et al, 2018; Prinja et al, 2018), and incidence rates of HIV/AIDS (Busza et al, 2018; Young et al, 2019), tuberculosis (Napier et al, 2016), and malaria (Ruckstuhl et al, 2017). CHWs have been instrumental in increasing uptake of immunizations (Nzioki et al, 2017) and cancer screenings (Bellhouse et al, 2018), along with helping with the management of asthma (Coutinho et al, 2020), diabetes (Palmas et al, 2015), and cardiovascular illnesses (Abdel-All et al, 2017).…”