Musoke D, Ndejjo R, Biyinzika Lubega G and Ekirapa-Kiracho E (2020) Use of photovoice to explore the potential role of youth in contributing to maternal health in rural Wakiso district, Uganda, Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 28:1, 1854152, DOI: 10.1080/26410397.2020.1854152
Despite youth constituting a large portion of the population in Uganda, their involvement in improving maternal health in their communities has been minimal. This paper explores the potential role of youth in contributing to maternal health in rural communities in Wakiso district, Uganda using photovoice. Photovoice was used as a community-based participatory research method among 10 youth (5 males and 5 females) over a period of 5 months. The photos taken by the youth were discussed in monthly meetings, and emerging data was analysed using thematic content analysis. Four themes emerged regarding how youth can contribute to improving maternal health in their communities. These themes were: community health education; advocacy for health improvement; community voluntary work; and being exemplary. The fifth and final theme provides the avenues, including drama and sports, that the youth suggested they could use for conveying messages to the community concerning maternal and general health. Health education on topics such as the importance of delivering at health facilities was emphasised. Regarding advocacy, the youth said they can be involved in reaching out to various stakeholders to raise concerns affecting maternal health. Voluntary work such as construction of energy stoves for pregnant women emerged. The youth also highlighted that they could be exemplary for instance by males accompanying their spouses during antenatal visits. With the need to continuously engage community actors in health initiatives, youth should be considered and supported as important stakeholders so they may engage in activities to improve health within their communities.
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Kiracho, E.E., Namuhani, N., Apolot, R.R. et al. (2020) Influence of community scorecards on maternal and newborn health service delivery and utilization, Int J Equity Health 19, 145, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01184-6
The community score card (CSC) is a participatory monitoring and evaluation tool that has been employed to strengthen the mutual accountability of health system and community actors. In this paper we describe the influence of the CSC on selected maternal and newborn service delivery and utilization indicators.
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Apolot, R.R., Tetui, M., Nyachwo, E.B. et al. (2020) Maternal health challenges experienced by adolescents; could community score cards address them? A case study of Kibuku District– Uganda, Int J Equity Health 19, 191, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01267-4
Approximately 34.8% of the Ugandan population is adolescents. The national teenage pregnancy rate is 25% and in Kibuku district, 17.6% of adolescents aged 12–19 years have begun child bearing. Adolescents mothers are vulnerable to many maternal health challenges including; stigma, unfriendly services and early marriages. The community score card (CSC) is a social accountability tool that can be used to point out challenges faced by the community in service delivery and utilization and ultimately address them. In this paper we aimed to document the challenges faced by adolescents during pregnancy, delivery and postnatal period and the extent to which the community score card could address these challenges.
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This issue brief describes the factors that facilitate the CSC implementation process, based on the lessons learnt from a CSC project on maternal and newborn health service delivery and utilization in six sub-counties of Kibuku district in Uganda. District and sub-county stakeholders led the implementation of the CSC, with support from Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH). Four rounds of scoring were undertaken between November 2017 and September 2018.
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Beginning in June 2017, the Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), in collaboration with Future Health Systems, has been implementing a CSC project focusing on maternal and newborn health service delivery and utilization in six sub-counties in Kibuku district, Uganda. As one of its exit strategies, the project carried out a qualitative study that explored ways of involving political leaders in the CSC process to ensure its sustainability.
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Musoke D, Ssemugabo C, Ndejjo R, Ekirapa-Kiracho E and George AS (2018) Reflecting strategic and conforming gendered experiences of community health workers (CHWs) using photovoice in rural Wakiso district, Uganda, Human Resources for Health, 16:41, DOI: 10.1186/s12960-018-0306-8
Community health workers (CHWs) are an important human resource in Uganda as they are the first contact of the population with the health system. Understanding gendered roles of CHWs is important in establishing how they influence their performance and relationships in communities. This paper explores the differential roles of male and female CHWs in rural Wakiso district, Uganda, using photovoice, an innovative community-based participatory research approach.
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FHS partner Makerere University School of Public Health is undertaking a Community Score Cards study, which is contributing to research on how leaders can work with the community and health workers to improve maternal and newborn health in Kibuku District. The use of the Community Score Card tool – a two-way and ongoing participatory tool for assessment, planning, monitoring and evaluation - aims to improve the performance of facilities and accountability by the different stakeholders who are responsible for improving the performance of facilities. This film provides an overview of the work and the use of community scorecards.
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This film, produced by FHS partner Makerere University School of Publich Health (MakSPH), highlights the challenges that women with disabilities face when seeking maternal health services in the Eastern Uganda district of Kibuku. To address some of these challenges, FHS partner MakSPH, in partnership with Research in Gender and Ethics (RinGs), is using the Community Scorecard methodology - a participatory tool for assessment, planning, monitoring and evaluation of services – with mothers living with disabilities, allowing their voices to be heard.
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Kananura RM, Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Paina L, Bumba A, Mulekwa G, Nakiganda-Busiku D, Oo HNL, Kiwanuka SN, George A and Peters DH (2017) Participatory monitoring and evaluation approaches that influence decision-making: lessons from a maternal and newborn study in Eastern Uganda, Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(Suppl 2):107, DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0274-9
The use of participatory monitoring and evaluation (M&E) approaches is important for guiding local decision-making, promoting the implementation of effective interventions and addressing emerging issues in the course of implementation. In this article, we explore how participatory M&E approaches helped to identify key design and implementation issues and how they influenced stakeholders’ decision-making in eastern Uganda.
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Tetui M, Coe A-B, Hurtig A-H, Bennett S, Kiwanuka SN, George A and Ekirapa Kiracho E (2017) A participatory action research approach to strengthening health managers’ capacity at district level in Eastern Uganda, Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(Suppl 2):110, DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0273-x
Many approaches to improving health managers’ capacity in poor countries, particularly those pursued by external agencies, employ non-participatory approaches and often seek to circumvent (rather than strengthen) weak public management structures. This limits opportunities for strengthening local health managers’ capacity, improving resource utilisation and enhancing service delivery. This study explored the contribution of a participatory action research approach to strengthening health managers’ capacity in Eastern Uganda.
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Paina L, Wilkinson A, Tetui M, Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Barman D, Ahmed T, Mahmood SS, Bloom G, Knezovich J, George A and Bennett S (2017) Using Theories of Change to inform implementation of health systems research and innovation: experiences of Future Health Systems consortium partners in Bangladesh, India and Uganda, Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(Suppl 2):109, DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0272-y
The Theory of Change (ToC) is a management and evaluation tool supporting critical thinking in the design, implementation and evaluation of development programmes. We document the experience of Future Health Systems (FHS) Consortium research teams in Bangladesh, India and Uganda with using ToC. We seek to understand how and why ToCs were applied and to clarify how they facilitate the implementation of iterative intervention designs and stakeholder engagement in health systems research and strengthening.
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Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Ghaosh U, Brahmachari R and Paina L (2017) Engaging stakeholders: lessons from the use of participatory tools for improving maternal and child care health services, Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(Suppl 2):106, DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0271-z
Effective stakeholder engagement in research and implementation is important for improving the development and implementation of policies and programmes. A varied number of tools have been employed for stakeholder engagement. In this paper, we discuss two participatory methods for engaging with stakeholders – participatory social network analysis (PSNA) and participatory impact pathways analysis (PIPA). Based on our experience, we derive lessons about when and how to apply these tools.
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Bennett S, Mahmood SS, Edward A, Tetui M and Ekirapa-Kiracho E (2017) Strengthening scaling up through learning from implementation: comparing experiences from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Uganda, Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(Suppl 2):108, DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0270-0
Many effective innovations and interventions are never effectively scaled up. Implementation research (IR) has the promise of supporting scale-up through enabling rapid learning about the intervention and its fit with the context in which it is implemented. We integrate conceptual frameworks addressing different dimensions of scaling up (specifically, the attributes of the service or innovation being scaled, the actors involved, the context, and the scale-up strategy) and questions commonly addressed by IR (concerning acceptability, appropriateness, adoption, feasibility, fidelity to original design, implementation costs, coverage and sustainability) to explore how IR can support scale-up.
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Morgan R, Tetui M, Kananura RM Ekirapa-Kiracho E and George AS (2017) Gender dynamics affecting maternal health and health care access and use in Uganda, Health Policy and Planning, Volume 32, Issue supplement 5, pp z13 - v21, doi: 10.1093/heapol/czx011
Abstract
Despite its reduction over the last decade, the maternal mortality rate in Uganda remains high, due to in part a lack of access to maternal health care. In an effort to increase access to care, a quasi-experimental trial using vouchers was implemented in Eastern Uganda between 2009 and 2011. Findings from the trial reported a dramatic increase in pregnant women’s access to institutional delivery. Sustainability of such interventions, however, is an important challenge. While such interventions are able to successfully address immediate access barriers, such as lack of financial resources and transportation, they are reliant on external resources to sustain them and are not designed to address the underlying causes contributing to women’s lack of access, including those related to gender. In an effort to examine ways to sustain the intervention beyond external financial resources, project implementers conducted a follow-up qualitative study to explore the root causes of women’s lack of maternal health care access and utilization. Based on emergent findings, a gender analysis of the data was conducted to identify key gender dynamics affecting maternal health and maternal health care. This paper reports the key gender dynamics identified during the analysis, by detailing how gender power relations affect maternal health care access and utilization in relation to: access to resources; division of labour, including women’s workload during and after pregnancy and lack of male involvement at health facilities; social norms, including perceptions of women’s attitudes and behaviour during pregnancy, men’s attitudes towards fatherhood, attitudes towards domestic violence, and health worker attitudes and behaviour; and decision-making. It concludes by discussing the need for integrating gender into maternal health care interventions if they are to address the root causes of barriers to maternal health access and utilization and improve access to and use of maternal health care in the long term.
Tetui M, Coe A-B, Hurtig A-K, Ekirapa-Kiracho E and Kiwanuka SN (2017) Experiences of using a participatory action research approach to strengthen district local capacity in Eastern Uganda, Global Health Action, 10:sup4, 1346038, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2017.1346038
To achieve a sustained improvement in health outcomes, the way health interventions are designed and implemented is critical. A participatory action research approach is applauded for building local capacity such as health management. Thereby increasing the chances of sustaining health interventions. This study explored stakeholder experiences of using PAR to implement an intervention meant to strengthen the local district capacity.
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Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Paina L, Kananura RM, Mutebi A, Jane P, Tumuhairwe J, Tetui M and Kiwanuka SN (2017) ‘Nurture the sprouting bud; do not uproot it’. Using saving groups to save for maternal and newborn health: lessons from rural Eastern Uganda, Global Health Action, 10:sup4, 1347311, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2017.1347311
Saving groups are increasingly being used to save in many developing countries. However, there is limited literature about how they can be exploited to improve maternal and newborn health. This paper describes saving practices, factors that encourage and constrain saving with saving groups, and lessons learnt while supporting communities to save through saving groups.
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Mutebi A, Kananura RM, Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Bua J, Kiwanuka SN, Nammazi G, Paina L and Tetui M (2017) Characteristics of community savings groups in rural Eastern Uganda: opportunities for improving access to maternal health services, Global Health Action, 10:sup4, 1347363, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2017.1347363
Rural populations in Uganda have limited access to formal financial Institutions, but a growing majority belong to saving groups. These saving groups could have the potential to improve household income and access to health services. This article aimed to understand organizational characteristics, benefits and challenges, of savings groups in rural Uganda.
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Namazzi G, Okuga M, Tetui M, Kananura RM, Kakaire A, Namutamba S, Mutebi A, Kiwanuka SN, Ekirapa-Kiracho E and Waiswa P (2017) Working with community health workers to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes: implementation and scale-up lessons from eastern Uganda, Global Health Action, 10:sup4, 1345495, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2017.1345495
Preventable maternal and newborn deaths can be averted through simple evidence-based interventions, such as the use of community health workers (CHWs), also known in Uganda as village health teams. However, the CHW strategy faces implementation challenges regarding training packages, supervision, and motivation. This paper explores knowledge levels of CHWs, describes the coverage of home visits, and shares lessons learnt from setting up and implementing the CHW strategy.
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Kiwanuka SN, Akulume M, Tetui M, Kananura RM, Bua J and Ekirapa-Kiracho E (2017) Balancing the cost of leaving with the cost of living: drivers of long-term retention of health workers: an explorative study in three rural districts in Eastern Uganda, Global Health Action, 10:sup4, 1345494, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2017.1345494
Health worker retention in rural and underserved areas remains a persisting problem in many low and middle income countries, and this directly affects the quality of health services offered. This paper explores the drivers of long-term retention and describes health worker coping mechanisms in rural Uganda.
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Kisakye AN, Kananura RM, Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Bua J, Akulume M, Namazzi G and Kiwanuka SN (2017) Effect of support supervision on maternal and newborn health services and practices in Rural Eastern Uganda, Global Health Action, 10:sup4, 1345496, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2017.1345496
Support supervision is one of the strategies used to check the quality of services provided at health facilities. From 2013 to 2015, Makerere University School of Public Health strengthened support supervision in the district of Kibuku, Kamuli and Pallisa in Eastern Uganda to improve the quality of maternal and newborn services. This article assesses quality improvements in maternal and newborn care services and practices during this period.
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