Under-five mortality before and after implementation of the Liberia National Community Health Assistant (NCHA) program: A study protocol

Dominik Jockers*, Richard Ngafuan, Till Baernighausen, Albert Kessley, Emily E. White, Avi Kenny, John Kraemer, John Geedeh, Jeffrey Rozelle, Leah Holmes, Hawa Obaje, Sylvester Wheh, Jon Pedersen, Mark J. Siedner, Savior Mendin, Marion Subah, Lisa R. Hirschhorn

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Between 2018 and 2022 the Liberian Government implemented the National Community Health Assistant (NCHA) program to improve provision of maternal and child health care to underserved rural areas of the country. Whereas the contributions of this and similar community health worker (CHW) based healthcare programs have been associated with improved process measures, the impact of a governmental CHW program at scale on child mortality has not been fully established. We will conduct a cluster sampled, community-based survey with landmark event calendars to retrospectively assess child births and deaths among all children born to women in the Grand Bassa District of Liberia. We will use a mixed effects Cox proportional hazards model, taking advantage of the staggered program implementation in Grand Bassa districts over a period of 4 years to compare rates of under-5 child mortality between the pre- and post-NCHA program implementation periods. This study will be the first to estimate the impact of the Liberian NCHA program on under-5 mortality.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere0272172
JournalPloS one
Volume19
Issue number3 March
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2024

Funding

Funding: The research is funded by Cargill, USAID DIV and UBS Optimus Foundation. www.cargill. com www.usaid.gov www.ubs.com The funders have no role in the study design, data collection, management, manuscript writing or decision to submit the report for publication.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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