The changing role of village health volunteers in Northeast Thailand: an ethnographic field study

Kauffman, Karen; Myers, Donna

doi:10.1016/s0020-7489(97)00012-6

Cited by 41 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…After acceptance through a formal application process, each volunteer receives seven days of training in primary health care and 15 days of specialised on-the-job training in health promotion, disease prevention, and health education. Following this training, VHVs are assigned to assist 7-15 households in their communities and work under the supervision of public health officials 32 . Their responsibilities include (but are not limited to) taking care of the general health of people in their own communities and also the prevention of communicable diseases in the villages.…”

Section: The Role Of Vhvs In Thailandmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of rehabilitation education for village health volunteers on walking speed and upper extremity function in stroke survivors in Thailand

Chinchai¹,

Khamwong²

2017

S. Afr. j. occup. ther

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INTRODUCTION: Stroke can cause long-term disabilities to survivors. Rehabilitation is an on-going process and should, ideally, be provided to these people in their homes. This study aimed to investigate the effect that rehabilitation education provided to village health volunteers (VHVs) would have on walking speed and upper extremity (UE) function in stroke survivors who stay at home in Thailand. METHODS: Participants were recruited by purposive sampling, which included 27 stroke survivors from four municipalities in Chiang Mai and Lamphun provinces. The measuring instruments used were the Ten-Meter Walk Test and the UE motor domain of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment. Researchers presented a 7-hour rehabilitation education programme to VHVs, who then made weekly1-hour visits to the homes of stroke survivors to implement the rehabilitation programme over eight weeks. Data were collected within seven days before and again after the 8-week programme. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics and the paired t-test were applied to analyse the data. Results showed that the participants used significantly less walking time from pre-test ( X =34.73 ±8.48) to post-test ( X =32.18±9.32) (p<0.05). However, the score of UE function at pre-test (X=36.81±9.59) was not significantly different from that at post-test (X =37.26±9.67). CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that trained VHVs can be part of the rehabilitation team and contribute to improved functional performance for disabled stroke survivors, particularly in developing countries. Key words: Hand function, gait speed, Home visit, motor function after stroke, community rehabilitation, home-based rehabilitation

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Section: The Role Of Vhvs In Thailandmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of rehabilitation education for village health volunteers on walking speed and upper extremity function in stroke survivors in Thailand

Chinchai¹,

Khamwong²

2017

S. Afr. j. occup. ther

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“…Engaging local, non-professional people from marginalized communities in the provision of health education and care for their peers first rose in popularity during the primary healthcare movement of the 1960s. The first CHW programs, which began in the mid 1950s, were China's barefoot doctors and Thailand's village health volunteers and communicators Kauffman & Myers, 1997;Sringernyuang, Hongvivatana & Pradabmuk, 1995;Zhu et al, 1989).…”

Section: Background On Community Health Worker Programs and The Alma Atamentioning

confidence: 99%

Retreat from Alma Ata? The WHO's report on Task Shifting to community health workers for AIDS care in poor countries

Campbell

Scott

2009

Global Public Health

108

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This paper examines the potential of community health worker (CHW) programmes, as proposed by the WHO's 2008 Task shifting to tackle health worker shortages -Global recommendation and guidelines, to contribute to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment and the achievement of various Millennium Development Goals in low income countries. It examines the WHO proposal through the lens of a literature review of factors that have facilitated the success of previous experiences of shifting tasks from health workers to trained lay people. The WHO has taken account of five key lessons learned from past CHW programmes (the need for strong management, appropriate CHW selection, suitable training, adequate retention and incentive structures, and good relationships with other healthcare workers). It has, however, neglected to emphasise the importance of the 'community embeddedness' of health volunteers, found to be of critical importance to the success of many past CHW programs. We have no doubt that the WHO Plans will increase the number of workers able to perform medically oriented tasks. However, we argue that without community embeddedness CHWs will be unable to perform the socially oriented tasks assigned to them by the WHO, such as health education and counseling. We locate the WHO's neglect of community-embeddedness within the context of a broader global public health trend away from community-focused primary health care towards biomedically-focused selective health care.

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“…Studies have investigated the extent to which CHWs in Brazil are effective at improving specific health outcomes and access to health care . Yet few qualitative studies have examined the challenges and strengths of CHWs from the perspectives of the CHWs themselves and of the community members they serve . To address this gap in knowledge, we investigated 3 key questions: How do CHWs perceive their role within the Family Health System? What are the biggest challenges CHWs face in their work? What improvements do CHWs believe would help them fulfill their role? …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges facing community health workers inBrazil's Family Health Strategy:Aqualitative study

Grossman-Kahn

Schoen

Mallett

et al. 2017

Health Planning & Management

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Community health worker (CHW) programs are implemented in many low- and middle-income countries such as Brazil to increase access to and quality of care for underserved populations; CHW programs have been found to improve certain indicators of health, but few studies have investigated the daily work of CHWs, their perspectives on what both helps and hinders them from fulfilling their roles, and ways that their effectiveness and job satisfaction could be increased. To examine these questions, we observed clinic visits, CHW home visits, and conducted semistructured interviews with CHWs in 7 primary care centers in Brazil-2 in Salvador, Bahia, and 5 in São Paulo, SP-in which CHWs are incorporated into the work of all primary care health teams. In addition to enhancing communication between the medical system and the community, CHWs consider their key roles to be helping persuade community members to seek medical care and increasing health professionals' awareness of the social conditions affecting their patients' health. Key obstacles that CHWs face include failure to be fully integrated into the primary care team, inability to follow-up on identified health needs due to limited resources, as well as community members' lack of understanding of their work and undervaluing of preventative medicine. Increased training, better incorporation of CHWs into clinic flow and decision making, and establishing a clear community awareness of the roles and value of CHWs will help increase the motivation and effectiveness of CHWs in Brazil.

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The changing role of village health volunteers in Northeast Thailand: an ethnographic field study

Cited by 41 publications

References 3 publications

The effects of rehabilitation education for village health volunteers on walking speed and upper extremity function in stroke survivors in Thailand

The effects of rehabilitation education for village health volunteers on walking speed and upper extremity function in stroke survivors in Thailand

Retreat from Alma Ata? The WHO's report on Task Shifting to community health workers for AIDS care in poor countries

Challenges facing community health workers inBrazil's Family Health Strategy:Aqualitative study

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