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HarvardX: CHA01 Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs

WHO Guidelines


Welcome the resource page on the WHO guideline on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programmes!

As part of primary health care teams, community health workers can increase access to health care and save lives.  Community health worker programs can also generate strong returns on investment in the health sector. Though approaches have varied across countries, documented cases teach us that without uniform best practices, valuable resources go to waste, results fall short of potential, and momentum behind programs wanes. To combat these risks, the World Health Organization led a process to gather data and assess systematically how governments and their partners have integrated community workers into the formal health system. 

The result of that data collection and synthesis is the WHO guideline on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programmes. The WHO urges policy makers, planners, and health systems leaders to draw from the recommendations presented in the guidelines when planning and implementing their community health worker programs. In doing so, the WHO emphasizes the following needs: to integrate community health worker programs based on objectives, context, and architecture of each health system; to recognize community health workers’ value; to invest in their success; and to continually advance the evidence on how to increase their effectiveness. 

Our course material makes references to the Guidelines periodically throughout various sections.

Please find a summary table of the Guidelines below and see the link at the bottom of the table labeled “Entirety” for the full downloadable version of the guidelines.

WHO Guideline on Health Policy and System Support to Optimize Community Health Worker Programmes

The WHO Guideline serves as a key reference tool for health systems leaders, synthesizing existing knowledge about community health worker programs and outlining 15 key recommendations for improving the design, implementation, performance, and evaluation of community health worker programs. We will discuss the guidelines more as we progress through the course, but will start by summarizing their objectives, target audiences, and key recommendation categories.

Objectives

  • Provide gender-sensitive recommendations on community health worker selection, training, management and integration.
  • Identify implementation and evaluation considerations at policy and system levels.
  • Suggest tools to support national uptake of recommendations in planning and operations.
  • Identify priority evidence gaps.

Target Audiences

  • Policy-makers, planners and managers responsible for health workforce policy at national and local levels.
  • Development partners, donors, global health initiatives, researchers, activists and civil society organizations.
  • Community health worker organizations and community health workers themselves.

Key Recommendation Categories:

  1. Community health worker selection
  2. Duration of pre-service training
  3. Competencies in curriculum for pre-service training
  4. Modalities of pre-service training
  5. Competency-based certification
  6. Supportive supervision
  7. Remuneration
  8. Contracting agreements
  9. Career ladder
  10. Target population size
  11. Data collection and use
  12. Types of community health workers
  13. Community engagement
  14. Mobilization of community resources
  15. Availability of supplies

To read the WHO guideline on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programmes, in its entirety, or to review highlights or an abridged version, use the following links:

Entirety

Selected Highlights

Abridged Version