Supporting the utilization of community-based primary health care implementation research in Ghana

作者：John Koku Awoonor‐Williams, James F. Phillips, Mathias Aboba, Lalitha Vadrevu, Esther Azasi, Janet Awopole Yepakeh Tiah, Margaret L. Schmitt, Sneha Patel, Mallory C. Sheff, S. Patrick Kachur · 发表于：Health Policy and Planning · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1093/heapol/czab156 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Global Maternal and Child Health、Community Development and Social Impact、Primary Care and Health Outcomes

Ever since the 1990s, implementation research in Ghana has guided the development of policies and practices that are essential to establishing community-based primary health care. In response to evidence emerging from this research, the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) policy was promulgated in 1999 to scale-up results. However, during the first decade of CHPS operation, national monitoring showed that its pace of coverage expansion was unacceptably slow. In 2010, the Ghana Health Service launched a 5-year plausibility trial of CHPS reform for testing ways to accelerate scale-up. This initiative, known as the Ghana Essential Health Intervention Program (GEHIP), included a knowledge management component for establishing congruence of knowledge generation and flow with the operational system that GEHIP evidence was intended to reform. Four Upper East Region districts served as trial areas, while seven districts were comparison areas. Interventions tested means of developing the upward flow of information based on perspectives of district managers, sub-district supervisors and community-level workers. GEHIP also endeavoured to improve procedures for the downward flow and utilization of policy guidelines. Field exchanges were convened for providing national, regional and district leaders with opportunities for participatory learning about GEHIP implementation innovations. This systems approach facilitated the process of augmenting the communication of evidence ...