We searched the PubMed database (2002-Present) for studies on the use of CHWs. The last search was run on 25 October 2012. We used the search term ‘community health workers’ and 47 related terms applied to CHWs in various health-promotion programmes as described in a review by Andrews [
14]. For our review, we added the terms ‘cultural brokers’ and ‘health brokers’ to the search, resulting in the following search terms (both singular and plural): ‘auxiliary health workers’, ‘canvassers’, ‘community health advisors’, ‘community health advocates’, ‘community health aides’, ‘community health representatives’, ‘community health workers’, ‘community helpers’, ‘community workers in human services’, ‘consejeras’, ‘cultural brokers’, ‘family health counsellors’, ‘family health promoters’, ‘health aides’, ‘health assistants’, ‘health brokers’, ‘health education aides’, ‘health care expediters’, ‘health facilitators’, ‘health guides’, ‘health hostesses’, ‘health liaisons’, ‘health outreach workers’, ‘health promoters’, ‘indigenous environmental workers’, ‘indigenous health aides’, ‘indigenous health professionals’, ‘indigenous lay workers’, ‘indigenous workers’, ‘informal helpers’, ‘lay community health workers’, ‘lay health advisors’, ‘lay volunteers’, ‘lay workers’, ‘natural caregivers’, ‘natural helpers’, ‘navigators’, ‘neighbourhood-based public health workers’’, ‘neighbourhood representatives’, ‘neighbourhood workers’, ‘nonprofessional workers’, ‘outreach workers’, ‘peer counsellors’, ‘peer educators’, ‘promotoros’, ‘public health aides’, ‘paraprofessionals’, ‘raidat rifiat’, ‘resource mothers’, ‘volunteer health educators’.
In addition, we used the PubMed filters ‘full text available’, ‘English language’, ‘published in the last ten years’, and ‘age 45 years and over’.