Abstract
Iran's Community Health Worker (CHW) programme survived as an integral element of the health system during a period when many other nations’ CHW programmes collapsed and therefore warrants detailed analysis of the policies supporting the programme. We draw on a wide range of information about the Iranian programme and from this analysis draw important lessons on how to improve rural population health outcomes through Primary Health Care.
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Acknowledgements
This work was made possible through funding provided by the Teasdale-Corti Global Health Research Partnership Programme. We acknowledge the support given by the facilitators of the project, most notably the University of Ottawa and the University of the Western Cape. We also acknowledge Dr A Marandi (the former minister of health in Iran), Dr AR Jamshidi and Dr G Heidari (the former heads of DNDHP) for reviewing the policy summary and providing comments for further clarification of policy contents.
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The authors analyze the policies in Iran that supported productive use of community health workers during a period when in many other countries, community health worker programs collapsed.
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Javanparast, S., Baum, F., Labonte, R. et al. A policy review of the community health worker programme in Iran. J Public Health Pol 32, 263–276 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2011.7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2011.7