ArticleBMC primary care2024
An ICT-enabled community oriented primary care intervention in mining communities during COVID-19 (2019-2022): perceived changes in the role and place of community health workers.
Article in BMC primary care, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Community Perceptions of Integrating Community Health Workers and Telehealth Services for Chronic Disease Management in a Rural Island Community: A Qualitative Study.Journal of participatory medicine · 2026Article
- A complexity theory-informed COPC approach to evaluation of mining health programmes.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThis is a study of service provider perceptions of the place, role and practices of CHWs in a four-year, large-scale private sector funded, public service ICT-enabled COPC intervention with rural and remote mining communities. Like all South African communities, apart from large mining house employees and some contractors, most people use available public healthcare services and private traditional as well as limited allopathic private sector providers. In addition to the limitations of facility centred primary healthcare and a fragmented health care system, the many negative health effects of mining on the communities, go unattended.
methodsThis is a rapid, qualitative pragmatic study. Using site and participation convenience sampling, 37 semi-structured individual or group interviews were conducted with 57 stakeholders from 38 of the 135 intervention PHC facilities. Using a data driven, inductive approach, the results were analysed thematically in terms of perceived changes in the role and place of CHWs.
resultsCHWs registered 42 490 households and captured the demographic and social profiles as well as the health status of over 154 910 individuals using AitaHealth™. These data provided healthcare professionals and managers with knowledge about community demographics, at-risk groups and vulnerable individuals. The intervention changed the locational focus of CHW practice and expanded their scope of work and competencies in household comprehensive health education, advice and care. It led to a growth in community and professional confidence in CHWs as trusted members of mining community PHC teams and to more focused and efficient clinic work.
conclusionThis ICT-enabled COPC intervention adopted a comprehensive approach to healthcare delivery that started by including CHWs in PHC teams and locating them in communities. Inclusive and systematic continuous learning, clinically-led CHW service support and ICT-enabled information technology engendered trust in CHWs as competent PHC members, and grew community confidence in them and the PHC system as a whole. Although health, care and other professionals and workers valued the changes the intervention brought to their work as well as people's lives in underserved and vulnerable mining communities, its sustainability is contingent on the vagaries of political will and financial commitment.
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.