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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Rasheduzzaman Shah, Department of Women's & Children's Health, International Maternal and Child Health Unit, Uppsala University, Sweden AND CARE - Bangladesh, House # 31, Road # 1, Flat # B/2, Mohammadia Housing Limited, Mohammadpur, Dhaka - 1209, Bangladesh, Dhaka, 1209, Bangladesh, 880-2-9112315 - 273, rashed39@hotmail.com, Mohammad Abdus Sabur, Dr, Sector Coordinator, CARE-Bangladesh, CARE-Bangladesh, H#59, Rd#7/A, Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka-1209, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Gunilla lindmark, Professor, Department of Women's & Children's Health, International Maternal and Child Health Unit, Uppsala University, Sweden, Entrance 11, University Academic Hospital, Uppsala, S - 751 85, Uppsala, Sweden, Uppsala, S - 751 85, Sweden, and Shamim Imam, MBBS, MPhil, CARE Bangladesh, CORE Group, House #60, Road #7A, Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
This study analyses the success of community involvement for achieving EPI targets and reducing immunization drop-out rates at outreach vaccination centers in 3 rural and remote sub-districts of Sylhet district in Bangladesh. Since its inception in 1985, the national Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) achieved tremendous EPI coverage (2% to 52%) in Bangladesh. Despite such significant national achievement, rural hard-to-reach areas are still lack far behind national coverage due to scattered population, remote terrain, lack of transport and communications infrastructure, and different community tradition and customs. The study was conducted as part of a child health development project (CHILD Project) of CARE-Bangladesh in 1999 adopting the strategy to involve community members in organizing community level outreach vaccination centers specifically to achieve EPI targets at outreach centers on clinic days. Data on achievement status of EPI targets and drop-out rates at each of the vaccination centers attended by community volunteers were compared to those of the centers - not attended by volunteers. Mean proportion of achievement of EPI targets at outreach vaccination centers those were attended or not-attended by community volunteers (86.4% vs. 78.1%) differs significantly (p<0.001). Similar statistically significant difference was observed while comparing mean drop-out rates at the centers with or without presence of community volunteers (3.5 vs. 5.8; p<0.001). These results demonstrate success of the strategy of involving community volunteers in achieving EPI targets at rural and remote vaccination centers in Bangladesh and the experience offers lesson to be replicated in areas with similar geography and population characteristics.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, participants in this session will be able to
Keywords: Community Involvement, Immunizations
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.