scholarly journals Improving Community Health and Nutrition Services: Role of Elected Leaders in Monitoring and Improving Service Delivery

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 672-672
Author(s):  
Phuong Nguyen ◽  
Shivani Kachwaha ◽  
Anjali Pant ◽  
Lan Mai Tran ◽  
Monika Walia ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives The COVID-19 pandemic has significant potential implications for health systems, but little primary evidence is available on effects on health and nutrition services. We aimed to examine changes in service provision and utilization during the pandemic in Uttar Pradesh, India and identify positive adaptations to service delivery. Methods We conducted longitudinal surveys with frontline workers (FLW, n = 313) and mothers of children < 2 years (n = 659) in December 2019 (in-person) and July 2020 (by phone). We also interviewed block-level managers and obtained administrative data. We examined changes in service provision and utilization using Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank tests. Results Compared to pre-pandemic, service provision reduced substantially during lockdown (83–98 percentage points, pp), except for home visits and take-home-rations (∼30%). Most FLWs (68–90%) resumed service provision in July 2020, except for immunization and hot-cooked meals (< 10%). Administrative data showed similar patterns of disruption and resumption. FLW fears, increased workload, inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE), and manpower shortages challenged service delivery. Key adaptations made to provide services included: delivering services to beneficiary homes (∼40–90%), social distancing (80%), using PPE (40–50%), and telephones for communication (∼20%). On the demand side, service utilization also reduced substantially (40–80pp) during the lockdown, but about half of mothers received home visits and food supplementation. Utilization for most services did not improve after the lockdown, bearing challenges of limited travel (30%), non-availability of services (26%), fear of catching virus when leaving the house (22%) or meeting service providers (14%). Conclusions COVID-19 affected the provision and use of health and nutrition services despite efforts at service restoration and adaptations. Strengthening logistics support, capacity enhancement, performance management, and demand creation are needed to improve service provision and utilization during and post-COVID-19. Funding Sources Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through POSHAN, led by International Food Policy Research Institute; and Alive & Thrive, led by FHI Solutions.


1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence D. Shriberg

A response evocation program, some principles underlying its development and administration, and a review of some clinical experiences with the program are presented. Sixty-five children with developmental articulation errors of the /ɝ/ phoneme were administered the program by one of 19 clinicians. Approximately 70% of program administrations resulted in a child emitting a good /ɝ/ within six minutes. Approximately 10% of children who were given additional training on program step failures emitted good /ɝ/'s in subsequent sessions. These preliminary observations are discussed in relation to the role of task analysis and motor skills learning principles in response evocation, clinician influences in program outcomes, and professional issues in service delivery to children with developmental articulation errors.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman

A majority of the black community of Dullstroom-Emnotweni in the Mpumalanga highveld in the east of South Africa trace their descent back to the southern Ndebele of the so-called ‘Mapoch Gronden’, who lost their land in the 1880s to become farm workers on their own land. A hundred years later, in 1980, descendants of the ‘Mapoggers’ settled in the newly built ‘township’ of Dullstroom, called Sakhelwe, finding jobs on the railways or as domestic workers. Oral interviews with the inhabitants of Sakhelwe – a name eventually abandoned in favour of Dullstroom- Emnotweni – testify to histories of transition from landowner to farmworker to unskilled labourer. The stories also highlight cultural conflicts between people of Ndebele, Pedi and Swazi descent and the influence of decades of subordination on local identities. Research projects conducted in this and the wider area of the eMakhazeni Local Municipality reveal the struggle to maintain religious, gender and youth identities in the face of competing political interests. Service delivery, higher education, space for women and the role of faith-based organisations in particular seem to be sites of contestation. Churches and their role in development and transformation, where they compete with political parties and state institutions, are the special focus of this study. They attempt to remain free from party politics, but are nevertheless co-opted into contra-culturing the lack of service delivery, poor standards of higher education and inadequate space for women, which are outside their traditional role of sustaining an oppressed community.


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