ArticleBMC pregnancy and childbirth2020
Engaging community health workers in maternal and infant death identification in Khayelitsha, South Africa: a pilot study.
Article in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Community engagement in maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response: a realist review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Review
- Barriers and Facilitators to the Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission Services Among Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women in Gauteng Province, South Africa.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2025Article
- Integrating trauma- and violence-informed care for adolescent mothers in Rwanda: a qualitative study with community health workers.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- How Can Community Data Be Leveraged to Advance Primary Health Care? A Scoping Review of Community-Based Health Information Systems.Global health, science and practice · 2024Article
- Factors influencing maternal death surveillance and review implementation in Dodoma City, Tanzania. A qualitative case study.Learning health systems · 2024Article
- Article
- Reducing inequities in maternal and child health in rural Guatemala through the CBIO+ Approach of Curamericas: 5. Mortality assessment.International journal for equity in health · 2023Article
- 'Voice needs teeth to have bite'! Expanding community-led multisectoral action-learning to address alcohol and drug abuse in rural South Africa.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Community surveillance and response to maternal and child deaths in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review.PloS one · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEngaging community health workers in a formalised death review process through verbal and social autopsy has been utilised in different settings to estimate the burden and causes of mortality, where civil registration and vital statistics systems are weak. This method has not been widely adopted. We piloted the use of trained community health workers (CHW) to investigate the extent of unreported maternal and infant deaths in Khayelitsha and explored requirements of such a programme and the role of CHWs in bridging gaps.
methodsThis was a mixed methods study, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods. Case identification and data collection were done by ten trained CHWs. Quantitative data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interview guides for key informant interviews, focus group discussions and informal conversations. Qualitative data were analysed thematically using a content analysis approach.
resultsAlthough more than half of the infant deaths occurred in hospitals (n = 11/17), about a quarter that occurred at home (n = 4/17) were unreported. Main causes of deaths as perceived by family members of the deceased were related to uncertainty about the quality of care in the facilities, socio-cultural and economic contexts where people lived and individual factors. Most unreported deaths were further attributed to weak facility-community links and socio-cultural practices. Fragmented death reporting systems were perceived to influence the quality of the data and this impacted on the number of unreported deaths. Only two maternal deaths were identified in this pilot study.
conclusionsCHWs can conduct verbal and social autopsy for maternal and infant deaths to complement formal vital registration systems. Capacity development, stakeholder's engagement, supervision, and support are essential for a community-linked death review system. Policymakers and implementers should establish a functional relationship between community-linked reporting systems and the existing system as a starting point. There is a need for more studies to confirm or build on our pilot findings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.