Motivation and incentive preferences of community health officers in Ghana: An economic behavioral experiment approach
Background: Health worker shortage in rural areas is one of the biggest problems of the health sector in Ghana and many developing countries. This may be due to fewer incentives and support systems available to attract and retain health workers at the rural level. This study explored the willingness of community health officers (CHOs) to […]
Sociocultural Factors Affecting Vocabulary Development in Young South African Children
Sociocultural influences on the development of child language skills have been widely studied, but the majority of the research findings were generated in Northern contexts. The current crosslinguistic, multisite study is the first of its kind in South Africa, considering the influence of a range of individual and sociocultural factors on expressive vocabulary size of […]
Individual and community level factors with a significant role in determining child height-for-age Z score in East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia: A multilevel analysis
Background: In Ethiopia, child undernutrition remains to be a major public health challenge and a contributing factor for child mortality and morbidity. To reduce the problem, it is apparent to identify determinants of child undernutrition in specific contexts to deliver appropriately, targeted, effective and sustainable interventions. Methods: An agroecosystem linked cross-sectional survey was conducted in […]
Consensus-based approach to develop a measurement framework and identify a core set of indicators to track implementation and progress towards effective coverage of facility- based Kangaroo Mother Care
Background As efforts to scale up the delivery of Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) in facilities are increasing, a standardized approach to measure implementation and progress towards effective coverage is needed. Here, we describe a consensus-based approach to develop a measurement framework and identify a core set of indicators for monitoring facility-based KMC that would be […]
A cluster randomised trial of cookstove interventions to improve infant health in Ghana
Introduction Household air pollution from solid fuel combustion for cooking and heating is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality worldwide. We hypothesised that clean cooking interventions delivered during pregnancy would improve child health. Methods We conducted a cluster randomised trial in rural Ghana to test whether providing pregnant women liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) […]
Collecting maternal health information from HIV-positive pregnant women using mobile phone-assisted face-to-face interviews in Southern Africa
Background: Most of the world’s women living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reside in sub-Saharan Africa. Although efforts to reduce mother-to-child transmission are underway, obtaining complete and accurate data from rural clinical sites to track progress presents a major challenge. Objective: To describe the acceptability and feasibility of mobile phones as a tool for clinic-based […]
Identifying common barriers and facilitators to linkage and retention in chronic disease care in western Kenya
Background: Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly being challenged in providing care and treatment for chronic diseases, both communicable and non-communicable. In order to address the challenges of linkage to and retention in chronic disease management, there is the need to understand the factors that can influence engagement in care. We conducted a qualitative study to identify […]
Determinants of low birth weight in neonates born in three hospitals in Brong Ahafo region, Ghana, 2016- an unmatched case-control study
Background: Each year, about 20 million Low Birth Weight (LBW) babies are born with very high proportion (96.5%) occuring in developing countries. In the last decade, the incidence of LBW in Ghana has not declined. Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana recorded a LBW prevalence of 11% which was higher than the the national average of […]
Exploring primary healthcare practitioners’ experiences regarding the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world since the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China. With the emergence of the Omicron variant, South Africa is presently the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Healthcare workers have been at the forefront of the pandemic in terms of screening, early detection […]
Home-based record (HBR) ownership and use of HBR recording fields in selected Kenyan communities: Results from the Kenya Missed Opportunities for Vaccination Assessment
Background Home-based records (HBRs), which take many forms, serve as an important tool for frontline health workers by providing a standardized patient history vital to making informed decisions about the need for immunization services. There are increasing concerns around HBRs with recording areas that are functionally irrelevant because records are incomplete or not up-to-date. The […]
