Community mobilisation to increase birth attendance by trained health workers in rural Makwanpur
Project Summary
Engaging citizens and communities to make services accountable is vital to achieving health development goals. Community participation in health management committees can increase public accountability of health services. We conducted a cluster randomised controlled trial to test the impact of strengthened health management committees (HMCs) and community mobilisation through women's groups, on institutional deliveries and deliveries by a trained health worker in rural Nepal.
The study was conducted in all Village Development Committee clusters in the hilly district of Makwanpur, Nepal (population of 420,500). In 21 clusters intervention clusters we conducted three-day workshops with HMCs to improve their capacity for planning and action, and supported female community health volunteers to run 203 women's groups. These groups met once a month and mobilised communities to address barriers to institutional delivery. We compared this intervention with 22 control clusters.
Key Project Information
Dates: 2010-2012
Principal Investigator: Prof David Osrin and Dr Dharma Manandhar
Partner: MIRA
Location: Nepal
Funding: Wellcome Trust Strategic Award
Contact: joanna.morrison@ucl.ac.uk
Dr Joanna Morrison
Prof David Osrin
Dr Anni-Maria Pulkki-Brannstrom
Prof Anthony Costello
Rita Thapa
Regina Basnyat
Kirti Tumbahangphe
Aman Sen
Bharat Budhathoki
Rishi Neupane
Kunta Dahal
Mangala Manandhar
Rita Shrestha
Jyoti Bamjan
Bidur Thapa
Anita Basnet
Dharma Manandhar