[01] Nzanzu Jeremie, Department of Health Information systems, Faculty of Community Health and Development, Great Lakes University of Kisumu, Kisumu, Kenya. [02] Caroline Akinyi, Department of Health Information systems, Faculty of Community Health and Development, Great Lakes University of Kisumu, Kisumu, Kenya.

Background: Essential health services for communities continue to be a challenge in low income countries, due to challenges of infrastructure, constrained health workforce, insufficient funds and weak health systems. Large scale community health programs have utilized various strategies based on the Alma Ata primary health care declaration in 1978 where community participation, multi-sectoral engagement and involvement of community workers play and important role. While the governance and management of community level health services hinge on the formal health system, the information linkages between the community structures influence access of services by households. Kenya has implemented a community health strategy that combines community level structures and workers to reach households with services through an information structure. Methods: A qualitative study was undertaken in two counties in Kenya that were implementing the government’s Community Health Strategy since 2006. The study used a questionnaire guide for data collection from respondents consisting of Community Health Workers, Community Committee members, Community Health Extension Workers and service users. Qualitative analysis of the data consisted of thematic explorations of the information to determine overall inferences. Results: The community based health information reflected on the Ministry of Health tool, the chalkboard, forms the theme that CHWs used in the household, compromising with some individual household health needs. Conclusion: The CHWs need to be sensitized on prioritizing household health needs alongside the general theme that arise from the chalk board information. CHWs need access to the household registers periodically to help them to determine dialogue topics during household visits.

Community Health Workers, Community Information Linkages, Health Systems, Human Resources for Health, Health Systems Strengthening

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