Community health workers in Ghana: the need for greater policy attention

Baatiema, Leonard; Sumah, Anthony Mwinkaara; Tang, Prosper Naazumah; Ganle, John Kuumuori

A rapid literature review of both published and unpublished works was conducted in Academic Science Complete, CINAHL, Embase, Global Health Medline, Google Scholar, ISI Web of Knowledge, POPLINE PubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Science. No year limit was included in the search. We also undertook a review of reports on the activities of community health workers (CHWs) in Ghana. The search sought to retrieve relevant documents ( programmatic and scholarly reports) on the activities of CHWs, especially in Ghana, using key words such as community health workers, CHW, village health worker, community health volunteer, lay health worker, traditional birth attendants, TBAs, Health Promoters, Ghana, remuneration, financing, health policy, impact, activities, training, practice and training. Relevant papers and information were retrieved and reference lists screened for more relevant studies. Studies which discussed the activities of CHWs with particular reference to Ghana were critically assessed for relevant information. In order to establish the activities of CHWs in the context of the globe, works related to CHWs in general were included based on relevance to the study aim. In addition, the scope of the literature included in this paper was confined to works which reported, described, analysed and synthesised the activities of CHW in the context of Ghana. Importantly, the paper incorporates insights on the activities of CHWs through anecdotes, authors' personal experiences and field reports. trained or untrained, and assigned roles in the community for which they receive no or some form of formal remuneration.