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The fourth in a series of 2008 World Malaria Day updates about Jhpiego's efforts to protect people from malaria. Jhpiego reaches across borders to fight a disease that has no borders.
Jhpiego strengthens malaria communication initiatives in Tanzania
April 2008
 Strong
communication skills help health care providers counsel their clients on
malaria prevention and treatment. In a new program sponsored by the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), Jhpiego is expanding its role in Tanzania to improve the awareness and understanding of average Tanzanians about preventing malaria.
Jhpiego is a partner in COMMIT (the Communication and Malaria Initiative in Tanzania). This new program, led by The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs with Population Services International and the Research Triangle Institute, will implement a comprehensive strategy for behavior change and communication in the prevention and case management of malaria in mainland Tanzania. Under this program, Jhpiego will lead two key areas of intervention:
- Working with health providers at different levels of the health system to improve their interpersonal communication (IPC) skills to counsel clients on malaria prevention, and
- Advising and supporting specific community health worker (CHW) interventions as a component of the COMMIT program's rural-based communication and change agent initiatives.
In their role as health care experts in Tanzania, health care providers have considerable influence in effecting behavior change with clients if messages are transmitted in an appropriate manner. To this end, COMMIT, through Jhpiego, aims to strengthen the communication and counseling skills of providers for effective dissemination of malaria-related messages.
In order to strengthen the IPC skills of facility-based health care providers, Jhpiego will work with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and other key partners to develop a research-based learning resource package, as well as simple job aids in English and Swahili, to train health care providers in IPC. Jhpiego will also adapt training materials for use in pre-service nursing and medical education. Jhpiego will ensure that providers nationwide receive IPC training by coordinating with current training activities in areas such as focused antenatal care and the use of arteminisin-based combination therapies.
Additionally, Jhpiego will help build demand for malaria prevention and treatment by mobilizing CHWs as community change agents. As respected members of their communities, CHWs are able to provide individual counseling and group education—two highly effective strategies for behavior change. Since 2005, Jhpiego has been working with CHWs in Tanzania to build their knowledge and skills in delivering key malaria prevention messages to their communities. Under COMMIT, Jhpiego will expand on the lessons learned from this experience and provide sustainable technical assistance to local organizations and health facilities for training and supporting CHWs. At the national level, Jhpiego and its partners will conduct advocacy activities to secure the role of CHWs and build community demand for facility health services.
About Jhpiego
For nearly 40 years, Jhpiego, (pronounced "ja-pie-go"), has empowered front-line health
workers by designing and implementing simple, low-cost, hands-on solutions that
strengthen the delivery of health care services, following the
household-to-hospital continuum of care. We partner with community- to
national-level organizations to build sustainable, local capacity through
advocacy, policy and guidelines development, and quality and performance
improvement approaches.
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