Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate

Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate

and Global health

A new article by Andy Haines, Elizabeth Wambui Kimani-Murage, and Anya Gopfert, “Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate,” outlines how climate change is already impacting health systems worldwide, with primary health care (PHC) workers bearing the immediate burden of response. Haines and colleagues make a compelling case for strengthening primary health care (PHC) as a cornerstone of climate-resilient health systems. First, they note that approximately 90% of essential universal health coverage interventions are delivered through PHC settings, making these facilities and workers the backbone of healthcare delivery. This is particularly significant because PHC systems address many of the health outcomes most affected by climate change, including non-communicable diseases, childhood undernutrition, and common infectious diseases like malaria, diarrheal diseases, and respiratory infections. Furthermore, PHC workers are often the first responders to extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves. They must manage both the immediate health impacts and …

Community-based monitoring for immunization

Integrating community-based monitoring (CBM) into a comprehensive learning-to-action model

Global health

According to Gavi, “community-based monitoring” or “CBM” is a process where service users collect data on various aspects of health service provision to monitor program implementation, identify gaps, and collaboratively develop solutions with providers. By engaging service users, CBM aims to foster greater accountability and responsiveness to local needs. The Geneva Learning Foundation’s innovative learning-to-action model offers a compelling framework within which CBM could be applied to immunization challenges. The model’s comprehensive design creates an enabling environment for effectively integrating diverse monitoring data sources – and this could include community perspectives. Health workers as trusted community advisers… and members of the community A distinctive feature of TGLF’s model is its emphasis on health workers’ role as trusted advisors to the communities they serve. The model recognizes that local health staff are not merely service providers, but often deeply embedded community members with intimate knowledge of local realities. For example, in …

Learn health, but beware of the behaviorist trap

Global health, Theory

The global health community has long grappled with the challenge of providing effective, scalable training to health workers, particularly in resource-constrained settings. In recent years, digital learning platforms have emerged as a potential solution, promising to deliver accessible, engaging, and impactful training at scale. Imagine a digital platform intended to train health workers at scale. Their theory of change rests on a few key assumptions: On the surface, this seems sensible. Mobile optimization recognizes health workers’ technological realities. Multimedia content seems more engaging than pure text. Assessments appear to verify learning. Incentives promise to drive uptake. Scale feels synonymous with success. While well-intentioned, such a platform risks falling into the trap of a behaviorist learning agenda. This is an approach that, despite its prevalence, is a pedagogical dead-end with limited potential for driving meaningful, sustained improvements in health worker performance and health outcomes. It is a paradigm that views learners …

Climate change and health-Health workers on climate, community, and the urgent need for action

Climate change and health: Health workers on climate, community, and the urgent need for action

Global health

As world leaders gathered for the COP28 climate conference, the Geneva Learning Foundation called for the insights of health workers on the frontlines of climate and health to be heard amidst the global dialogue. Ahead of Teach to Reach 10, a new eyewitness report analyses 219 new insights shared by 122 health professionals – primarily those working in local communities across Africa, Asia and Latin America – to two critical questions: How is climate change affecting the health of the communities you serve right now? And what actions must world leaders take to help you protect the people in your care? (Teach to Reach is a regular peer learning event. The tenth edition on 20-21 June 2024 is expected to gather over 20,000 community-based health workers to share experience of climate change impacts on health. Request your invitation here.) Their answers paint a picture of the accelerating health crisis unfolding in the world’s most climate-vulnerable …

Journée mondiale de lutte contre le paludisme La Fondation Apprendre Genève

Journée mondiale contre le paludisme: nous avons besoin de nouvelles façons de mener le changement

Global health

English version | Version française Aujourd’hui, à l’occasion de la Journée mondiale contre le paludisme, la Fondation Apprendre Genève est fière de se tenir aux côtés des travailleurs de la santé en première ligne dans la lutte contre cette maladie. Le paludisme reste un problème de santé majeure, affectant de manière disproportionnée les communautés d’Afrique et d’Asie. C’est pourquoi la lutte contre le paludisme sera au cœur de Teach to Reach 10, un événement phare qui permet à des milliers de professionnels de santé du monde entier de partager leurs expériences, leurs réussites et leurs défis. Teach to Reach est une plateforme qui facilite l’apprentissage par les pairs afin de mener des actions locales sur des questions de santé urgentes. Lors de Teach to Reach 10 le 21 juin 2024, nous nous concentrerons sur la menace urgente que représente le changement climatique pour la santé, en mettant particulièrement l’accent sur …

World Malaria Day 2024 The Geneva Learning Foundation

World Malaria Day 2024: We need new ways to support health workers leading change with local communities

Global health

English version | Version française Today, on World Malaria Day, the Geneva Learning Foundation is proud to stand with health workers on the frontlines of the fight against this deadly disease. Malaria remains a critical global health challenge, disproportionately affecting communities in Africa and Asia. That’s why we’re putting malaria at the heart of the agenda for Teach to Reach 10, our landmark event connecting tens of thousands of health workers worldwide to share their experiences, successes, and challenges. Teach to Reach is a unique platform that enables health workers to learn from each other, contribute to global knowledge, and drive local action on pressing health issues. At Teach to Reach 10 this June, we will be focusing on the urgent threat of climate change to health, with a special emphasis on how changing environmental conditions are altering the landscape of malaria risk and response. Read Gavi’s article about our …

Protect Invest Together

Protect, invest, together: strengthening health workforce through new learning models

Global health

In “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together,” Agyeman-Manu et al. assert that the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated longstanding health workforce deficiencies globally, especially in under-resourced nations.  With projected shortages of 10 million health workers concentrated in Africa and the Middle East by 2030, the authors urgently call for policymakers to commit to retaining and expanding national health workforces.  They propose common-sense solutions: increased, coordinated financing and collaboration across government agencies managing health, finance, economic development, education and labor portfolios. But how can such interconnected, long-term investments be designed for maximum sustainable impact? And what is the role of education? Rethinking health worker learning In a 2021 WHO survey across 159 countries, most health workers reported lacking adequate training to respond effectively to pandemic demands. This exposed systemic weaknesses in how health workforces develop skills at scale. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, limitations of traditional learning approaches were …

Prioritizing the health and care workforce shortage

Prioritizing the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together

Global health

The severe global shortage of health and care workers poses a dangerous threat to health systems, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors of the article “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together”, including six health ministers and the WHO Director-General, assert that this workforce crisis requires urgent action and propose “protect, invest, together” to tackle it. Deep protection of the existing workforce, they assert, is needed through improved working conditions, fair compensation, upholding rights, addressing discrimination and violence, closing gender inequities, and implementing the WHO Global Health and Care Worker Compact to ensure dignified working environments. All countries must prioritize retaining workers to build resilient health systems. Significantly increased and strategic long-term investments are imperative in both training new health workers through educational channels and sustaining their employment. Countries should designate workforce development, especially at the primary care level, as crucial human capital investments …

Health performance management in complex adaptive systems

How do we reframe health performance management within complex adaptive systems?

Global health, Learning, Research

We need a conceptual framework that situates health performance management within complex adaptive systems. This is a summary of an important paper by Tom Newton-Lewis et al. It describes such a conceptual framework that identifies the factors that determine the appropriate balance between directive and enabling approaches to performance management in a given context. Existing performance management approaches in many low- and middle-income country health systems are largely directive, aiming to control behaviour using targets, performance monitoring, incentives, and answerability to hierarchies. Health systems are complex and adaptive: performance outcomes arise from interactions between many interconnected system actors and their ability to adapt to pressures for change. In my view, this important paper mends an important broken link in theories of change that try to consider learning beyond training. The complex, dynamic, multilevel nature of health systems makes outcomes difficult to control, so directive approaches to performance management need to …