GHEI

Surano Malaria Health Prevention Project

In early 2007, GHEI began a project to determine the most effective and appropriate way to prevent malaria through Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) and education. GHEI's eventual goal is to use this knowledge to create an intervention that could be scaled up to the district level with a population of 110,000 people spread through more than 80 villages.

A key aspect of this project is the Community Health Worker model that we have employed. Trained Community Health Workers do in home education, hang nets over every sleeping area, retreat nets when necessary, mend nets and provide support to the community.

Timeline

In the summer of 2007, Becky Osborn and Dave Lessens, two MPH students, traveled to the village of Surano for one month to conduct focus groups, key informant interviews and administer a survey based on the Malaria Indicator Survey from the WHO. They discovered additional barriers to bednet use, which we could then address in our intervention. They found that less than half of this high risk population own ITNs and only 14% of those who own ITNs used them the previous night. This study was IRB approved by UCLA and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The information they gathered enabled GHEI to create an appropriate community project, which was completed in Surano in early 2008. The project was led entirely by six trained Community Health Workers (CHWs) and a Ghanaian Project Manager. GHEI's Health Coordinator and two American pediatric residents helped with training and provided support during the process. The CHWs visited every home in Surano and educated household members about malaria prevention and bed net use with a picture-based flipchart. Follwing this, the CHW's hung free insecticide treated bed nets in all sleeping areas.

We are currently planning for additional assessments and will then begin planning for expansion into neighboring villages.