This article was originally published by Global Health Now.
Paid or volunteer?
Community health workers are on the frontlines in many countries—and vital to achieving universal health coverage. Yet the public health community has not reached a consensus on which model is the best.
Consensus is urgently needed, both at the global and country levels, to inform future policies and strategies for strengthening health systems and delivering on UHC.
Based on our experiences in rural Peru and Ethiopia, it’s not either-or. It’s both.
Full-time, paid CHWs form the backbone of family- and community-based services, but there aren’t enough to reach all families. We envision teams of government-paid, full-time CHWs providing comprehensive services to a given population, with a primary health center hub as the base of operations. Each CHW, in turn, would lead a team of part-time community health volunteers providing limited health education and referral services—such as maternal and newborn health, nutrition, hygiene, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS—to a small number of neighboring families.