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COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article

Front. Disaster Emerg. Med.
Sec. Disaster Medicine
Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/femer.2025.1529772

Bridging the Gap: Community Health Workers as a Vital Link in Humanitarian Medical Responses

Provisionally accepted
Cora P. Nally Cora P. Nally 1*Marleen Temmerman Marleen Temmerman 1,2Patrick Van De Voorde Patrick Van De Voorde 3Adama Koroma Adama Koroma 4Monique Mitchell Monique Mitchell 5Mary Adam Mary Adam 6
  • 1 Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
  • 2 Centre of Excellence for Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 3 Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium
  • 4 Public Health Consultant, Freetown, Sierra Leone
  • 5 Ministry of Health Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas
  • 6 Kijabe Hospital, Kijabe, Kenya

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Community Health Workers (CHWs) have proven essential in improving health outcomes and building community trust and their role in humanitarian emergency medical responses warrants further study. We illustrate this point with two case studies, the integration of community health workers into Mobile Medical Teams [MMTs] in both The Bahamas and Sierra Leone. CHWs in these examples came to the forefront of addressing community mistrust for external medical teams, health communication efforts and patient follow-up care. In Sierra Leone, this program resulted in a 32% rise in referrals to established health services. By exploring these contexts, the paper provides a new framework for enhancing humanitarian responses through CHWs, outlining the strategic, logistical, and cultural benefits of such an approach. This research suggests that integrating CHWs with MMT's can bolster health outcomes, especially in communities affected by political instability, natural disasters, and resource limitations. The paper ends by providing policy implications and recommendations for further research on the use of CHWs during a range of emergency contexts.

    Keywords: Community health worker (CHW), Mobile Medical Team (MMT), Sierra Leone Ebola database, Hurricane Dorian 2019, Community based programs, Humanitarian response

    Received: 17 Nov 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Nally, Temmerman, Van De Voorde, Koroma, Mitchell and Adam. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Cora P. Nally, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.