Awareness and Practices of Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) Workers about Child Health: A Cross Sectional Study

Introduction: Use of community health workers as a strategy for improving the health of individuals and communities is increasingly getting attention worldwide. Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) has been introduced in National Rural Health Mission. Are they aware of what is expected from them for child health?Objective: To assess the awareness and practices of ASHA workers regarding child health.Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in north east district of Delhi among 55 ASHA workers. Data was collected using a pre tested semi-structured questionnaire that consisted of items on socio-demographic profile of ASHA workers, and knowledge and practices about child health. The data was analyzed by using SPSS software version 17.Results: Mean age of ASHAs was 31.84 + 7.2 years. Most of them were married (96.4%) and Hindu (85.5%). Fifty two (94.5%) ASHA workers knew that exclusive breastfeeding should be continued till 6 months of age. 54 (98.2%) ASHAs were aware of their role of mobilizing children for immunization and 43 (78.2%) knew about their role in counseling mothers about child nutrition. Thirty seven (67.3%) ASHA workers reported that they used to visit the newborn in their area within a week of birth. None of the ASHA workers were provided with drug kits.Conclusion: The present study showed knowledge is good in certain areas, but improvement is needed in other areas and skills and administrative support is needed to deliver child health services effectively

Qualitative lens to assessing the ground level implementation of conditional cash transfer scheme in India

Background: Conditional cash transfer scheme, known as Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY) is an innovative concept on the lines of behavioral economics. The study aimed to investigate factors associated with effective implementation of scheme at the community in Delhi, India.Methods: We did qualitative study to investigate the implementation factors related to JSY by conducting in depth interviews with 50 mothers in a span of three months. All the interviews were conducted in local language (Hindi) by the principle investigator. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which were later transcribed and recorded in Microsoft-Excel sheet. The themes were developed inductively, meaning that they were anticipated from the design of interview, during literature review and deductively meaning that they were not anticipated during design of the interview.Results: The mean (±SD) age of the women was 25(±3.5) years. More than three-forth of the mothers were not aware of the JSY scheme. Most of the women claimed limited support from accredited social health activist at the time of delivery. Provision of respectful maternity care was poor with women reporting episodes of verbal abuses, and arrogant attitude of the staff. Issues in utilization of the scheme encountered in study were untimely disbursement of money, problems in the process of BPL cards formation, lack of awareness on the scheme, banking illiteracy etc.Conclusions: Amidst the wider geographic reach and accessibility of the scheme by the poor, there exists some barriers to its effective implementation and practical challenges, which need immediate addressal by program managers