REACHOUT Consortium

In REACHOUT, the focus is to improve the performance of close-to-community providers that have a link with either the government or a non governmental organisation programme. For Mozambique, Malawi, and Kenya these are community health workers and for Ethiopia these are the health extension workers. The latter cadre has a one year para-professional... education and is employed by the government health services and therefore could be regarded to fall within the WHO definition of an auxiliary worker. For the purpose of the international literature review, it was necessary to develop the definition of close-to-community provider with clear limits (mainly regarding educational level). Informal providers are considered within the definition of close-to-community providers when they have a link with a government or non governmental organisation programme and when they are trained. This is relevant for Bangladesh. Village midwives in Indonesia have a full midwifery education and don't fall into the close-to-community provider definition. The close-to-community provider definition of REACHOUT excludes informal cadres, like community pharmacists, informal private practitioners, traditional healers and traditional birth attendants who are not trained for an intervention or who don't collaborate with other actors in the health system. The definition also excludes cadres with tertiary education. This doesn't mean that they are completely excluded from the REACHOUT literature review or processes; we will address the interactions between close-to-community providers and these cadres. Nor are they excluded from the 'improvement cycles'.Read More