BACKGROUND National community health worker (CHW) programmes are returning to favour as an integral part of primary health care systems, often on the back of pre-existing community based initiatives. There are significant challenges to the integration and support of such programmes, and they require coordination and stewardship at all levels of the health system. This paper explores the leaders...

BACKGROUND Recent years have seen a re-emergence of community health worker (CHW) interventions, especially in relation to HIV care, and in increasing coverage of child health interventions. Such programmes can be particularly appealing in the face of human resource shortages and fragmented health systems. However, do we know enough about how these interventions function in order to support the...

outcomes of respiratory failure among hospitalized pneumonia patients with 2009 H1N1 infl uenza in Taiwan.sign of a robust infrastructure to monitor the safety of the pandemic A(H1N1) 2009 vaccination program in Taiwan. To the Editor: We read with interest the report by Carcione et al. of clinical features of pandemic infl uenza A (H1N1) 2009 and comparison of these with 2009 seasonal infl uenz...

BACKGROUND Despite significant progress, pneumonia is still the leading cause of infectious deaths in children under five years of age. Poor adherence to antibiotics has been associated with treatment failure in World Health Organisation (WHO) defined clinical pneumonia; therefore, improving adherence could improve outcomes in children with fast-breathing pneumonia. We examined clinical factors...

OBJECTIVES Dementia prevalence and its burden on families are increasing. Caregivers of persons with dementia have more depression and stress than the general population. Several interventions have proven efficacy in decreasing depression and stress in selected populations of caregivers. Hispanics in New York City tend to have a higher burden of dementia caregiving compared to non-Hispanic whit...

INTRODUCTION With the continuous growth of mobile network coverage and unprecedented penetration of mobile devices in the developing world, several mHealth initiatives are being implemented in developing countries. This paper aims to describe requirements for designing and implementing a mobile phone-based communication system aiming at monitoring pregnancy and reducing bottlenecks in communica...

AIM To describe the training, supervision and quality of care components of integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) programmes and to draw lessons learned from existing evaluations of those programmes. METHODS Scoping review of reports from 29 selected iCCM programmes purposively provided by stakeholders containing any information relevant to understand quality of care issues. RESULTS T...