Human Discourses in Action: Community Health Workers’ Contribution to Health Security and Pandemic Preparedness

Mondal, Moumita

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. Health emergencies, such as the increasing frequency of different non-communicable and communicable diseases, like the COVID-19, pose a global risk and have shown the critical need for preparedness. Community health workers have traditionally been used to improve community health initiatives, manage the risk of infectious diseases, and fill the healthcare system gap by extending health services to the last people. They can act as community-level educators and mobilizers, contributing to surveillance, monitoring, and healthcare referral systems. The present study discusses why developing countries like India should utilize community health workers’ services to ensure the universal health of the Sustainable Development Goals-3, which seeks to improve community-level resilience against non-communicable and communicable diseases, notably the present pandemic.