Dr. Prabhjot Singh, an international health systems expert at the Earth Institute who helped design community health worker systems for the Millennium Villages Project across 10 African countries, has won a $40,000 Young Leader Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Approximately one in eight children dies before the age of 5 in sub-Saharan Africa – a rate that has been declining, but is still nearly 20 times higher than in developed nations. A new Lancet study out this week suggests that the multiple interventions applied in the Millennium Villages Project are having a significant impact, [...]
Community Health Workers (CHWs), health assistants or lay health workers who provide a fundamental level of health care for residents in the community in which they live, have been shown to make a tremendous contribution to public health and community development. In Kisumu, Kenya, residents of Manyatta, an informal settlement with nearly 90,000 people that currently lacks any sort of government-run health facility, will soon benefit from an ongoing, wide-ranging CHW training, led by the Municipal Council of Kisumu’s Health Department, in collaboration with Cordaid Urban Matters, a Dutch development agency, and MCI, ably led by MCI’s Public Health Specialist Beldina Opiyo-Omolo.
By Anne Liu and Sarah Sullivan
Extending the reach of public health systems through a well-trained and supported community health workforce is the best step we can take in meeting the MDGs. This can be done by strengthening health systems and increasing equity in health care access by extending care to the world’s most vulnerable populations.
In a world of increasing rates of obesity, it is sometimes hard to remember that another type of malnutrition—undernutrition—remains a major contributor to mortality. Although all ages may be affected by malnutrition, children are most vulnerable to death and long-term disabilities caused by this disease. As such, treating and preventing undernutrition in children contribute to [...]
In the past few weeks, there has been an steady rise in news about Community Health Workers (CHWs), domestically and abroad. The reason for enthusiasm is obvious: without replacing doctors and nurses, regular people can take an active role in the health of their community.
Today, two of the world’s leading companies announce grants and technical support totaling more than $1,000,000 aimed at ending global poverty by 2015.
New York, September 21 – The Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development and the Earth Institute, Columbia University today announced a new partnership in support of the Ghana Telemedicine Project, a pilot to use the latest in information and communications technology to improve point-of-service health care services in the Millennium Village of Bonsaaso, Ghana. With this [...]
Originally posted at karibusauri.wordpress.com The other week I walked the footpaths of Nyaminia, a sub-location of the Millennium Village Project in Sauri, Kenya, to visit households with Richard*, a Community Health Worker (CHW). Going around with a CHW was eye-opening. It’s one thing to read about nutrition screenings and the use of mobile phones for health [...]
We are thrilled to announce that Matt Berg, ICT Director for the Millennium Villages project and Earth Institute researcher was named to the 2010 TIME 100 Most Influential People list. Through groundbreaking initiatives like the new mobile phone platform ChildCount+, Matt is pioneering the use of mobile technology to revolutionize public health systems and greatly [...]
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