Community health workers at the dawn of a new era: 9. CHWs’ relationships with the health system and communities (original) (raw)

Background This is the ninth paper in our series, “Community Health Workers at the Dawn of a New Era”. Community health workers (CHWs) are in an intermediary position between the health system and the community. While this position provides CHWs with a good platform to improve community health, a major challenge in large-scale CHW programmes is the need for CHWs to establish and maintain beneficial relationships with both sets of actors, who may have different expectations and needs. This paper focuses on the quality of CHW relationships with actors at the local level of the national health system and with communities. Methods The authors conducted a selective review of journal articles and the grey literature, including case study findings in the 2020 book Health for the People: National CHW Programs from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. They also drew upon their experience working with CHW programmes. Results The space where CHWs form relationships with the health system and the community...