Female health workers increased use of health services in hard-to-reach rural area
2015-03-17
(Press-News.org) March 17, 2015 -- Female community health extension workers deployed to a remote rural community in northern Nigeria led to major and sustained increases in service utilization, including antenatal care and facility-based deliveries, according to latest research by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public. The research also showed that providing a rural residence allowance in addition to a standard salary helped recruit and retain female workers. Other key components to the program's success were posting workers in pairs to avoid isolation, ensuring supplies and transportation means for home visits, and allowing workers to perform deliveries. Findings are published in Global Health: Science and Practice.
Northern Nigeria is an area with poor health indicators and a very weak health system. It also has one of the highest maternal and mortality rates in the world, which is compounded by poor governance, management, and accountability.
Following deployment of the female health workers there was more than a 500 percent increase in health post visits compared to the previous year, from approximately1.5 monthly visits per 100 population to 8 monthly visits. Health post visit rates were between 1.4 and 1.5 times higher in the intervention community compared to the control community. These changes were sustained over two subsequent years.
"Our pilot study led to the major improvements in health impacts reported over the course of seven years," noted Dr. Alastair Ager, professor of Population & Family Health and one of the research team supporting the program over a seven-year period. The grassroots operation undertaken in this environment and described here were key to the progress we are seeing to date."
INFORMATION:
The research was supported by the PRRINN-MNCH Program, funded by DFID and the Norwegian Government; Health Partners International, Save the Children, and GRID Consulting.
About Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
Founded in 1922, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Mailman School is the third largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its over 450 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change & health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with over 1,300 graduate students from more than 40 nations pursuing a variety of master's and doctoral degree programs. The Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers including ICAP (formerly the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs) and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-03-17
Archaeologists from The Field Museum in Chicago, IL and Shandong University (Jinan, China) have investigated the historical processes leading up to China's political unification through the juxtaposition of macro- and micro-scale analysis. The study offers new perspectives on how human impacts of infrastructural investments, interactive technologies, social contracts, and ideologies that were implemented during the Qin and Han Dynasties and before have helped establish the rough spatial configuration of what is today China.
Why humans cooperate in large social groupings ...
2015-03-17
The genome of a cell is under constant attack, suffering DNA damage that requires an army of repair mechanisms to keep the cell healthy and alive. Understanding the behavior of the enzymes defending these assaults helps determine how - and where - cancer gets its foothold and flourishes. New research published in an Advance Online Publication of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology shows that one of these enzymes - human DNA polymerase theta (POLQ) - may be a promising drug therapy target for inhibiting breast cancer.
"The human genome encodes more than 15 different ...
2015-03-17
What's in store for the future of industrial bioprocessing for medical therapies, which involves the use of living organisms or cells to create drugs or other agents? Will the batch or continuous bioprocessing platform dominate biomanufacturing of human therapeutics down the road? Three pioneers in the field address these questions in an upcoming issue of Biotechnology and Bioengineering.
With batch bioprocessing, components are transferred as a batch from one holding vessel or processing equipment to the next, while with continuous bioprocessing, there is a continuous ...
2015-03-17
URBANA, Ill. - While many recent studies have documented that agricultural producers must significantly increase yields in order to meet the food, feed, and fuel demands of a growing population, few have given practical solutions on how to do this. Crop science researchers at the University of Illinois interested in determining and reducing corn yield gaps are addressing this important issue by taking a systematic approach to the problem.
A recent study from the Illinois Crop Physiology Laboratory, led by Fred Below, a U of I crop physiologist, provides the first estimate ...
2015-03-17
Previous calculations may have overestimated the importance of HIV transmission from recently infected individuals ("acute phase infectivity") in driving HIV epidemics, according to an article published by Steve Bellan of The University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues in this week's PLOS Medicine.
The lower estimates of acute phase infectivity suggest that recently infected individuals--who have not had the chance to start antiretroviral treatment--although still more infectious on average than those in the chronic stage of infection, are not as likely to infect others ...
2015-03-17
Overpopulation, the greenhouse effect, warming temperatures and overall climate disruption are all well recognized as a major threat to the ecology and biodiversity of the Earth. The issue of mankind's negative impact on the environment, albeit hotly debated and continuously present in the public eye, still only leads to limited policy action.
Urgent action is required, insist Paul Cruzten and Stanislaw Waclawek, the authors of "Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate in the Anthropocene", published in open access in the new Chemistry-Didactics-Ecology-Metrology.
In their ...
2015-03-17
TORONTO, March 17, 2015 - A group of York University investigators and their international counterparts have jointly created a database of lake surface temperatures, to help study ecological effects of climate change.
"There has been a significant need to put together a database like this, considering the rapid warming of lakes," observes Professor Sapna Sharma in the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science who led the international effort.
As part of the Global Lake Temperature Collaboration (GLTC) project, Sharma and several of her undergraduate students, Anam ...
2015-03-17
AUSTIN, Texas - People who recently have been infected with HIV may not be as highly infectious as previously believed, a finding that could improve global efforts to prevent HIV transmission and save lives. In particular, the finding bolsters the strategy of treating patients with antiretroviral drugs before the onset of AIDS to prevent transmission.
Mathematical epidemiologists Steve Bellan, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Texas at Austin, and Lauren Ancel Meyers, a biology professor at the university, authored the paper with researchers from McMaster ...
2015-03-17
Scientists in a collaboration led by Dai Takei of the RIKEN SPring-8 Center in Japan have, for the first time, examined a detailed 'time lapse' X-ray image of the expansion of a classical nova explosion using the GK Persei nova -- a binary star system which underwent a nova explosion in 1901.
Through this work, they hope to gain a better understanding of the expansion of gases in the universe, including not only in classical novae but also in supernovae--tremendous stellar explosions that are believed to be responsible for the creation of heavy elements such as uranium ...
2015-03-17
Vitamin D may play a vital role in the prevention and treatment of diseases associated with aging, according to researchers at Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (MNSON). These findings were published in the latest issue of the Journal of Aging and Gerontology.
Researchers reviewed evidence that suggests an association between vitamin D deficiency and chronic diseases associated with aging such as cognitive decline, depression, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and cancer.
"Vitamin D deficiency is a ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Female health workers increased use of health services in hard-to-reach rural area
