A Global Review of Training of Community Health Workers

Abstract

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are often the most important deliverers of health care services. This review brings together relevant information on CHWs and their training. These materials concern themselves with training techniques as they have been developed in various programs in various countries around the world. Because of the relative newness of the field the bulk of the materials have been written only in the last ten years. Four phases in training CHWs to undertake primary health care work are reviewed. These are: assessing the community's health needs and priorities and specifying the CHWs' tasks, adapting CHW training to the community, selecting CHWs and providing the CHWs with training and support. Issues of concern relating to these phases are: who is the trainer, what training strategies are to be followed, how is the training to be monitored and evaluated and, finally, what is the cost. A guide to twenty-two manuals that have been developed in various countries for use in training CHWs is included.