Motivation of Volunteer Community Health Workers

The shortage of well-trained health workers is a challenge to health systems around the world particularly in low-and-middle-income countries. One method of helping to address this multifaceted crisis is by shifting certain tasks to community members with lower qualifications to provide basic health services to their community. Volunteer community health workers (vCHWs) in Ethiopia Health Development Army (HDA) are currently providing preventive and promotive services such as immunization; family planning; prenatal and postnatal care; birth preparedness and complication readiness; maternal infant and young child nutrition; personal hygiene; and home management and environmental sanitation. To ensure the continuity and sustainability of volunteer community health programs assessment of factors contributing to the motivation of vCHWs and recognizing their contribution to the health of the community are critical.