Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103761

Frank K. Nyonator, MD, MPH, Director, Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ghana Health Service, Private Mail Bag, Accra, Ghana, 233-21-684-274, nyonator@africaonline.com.gh, J. Koku Awoonor-Williams, MD, MPH, District Director, Nwkanta District Health Administration, Ghana Health Service, P.O. Box 54, Nkwanta, Volta Region, Ghana, James Phillips, PhD, Policy Research Division, Population Council, 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017, Agyeman Badu Akosa, Prof, Ghana Health service, Private Mailbag (Ministries), Accra, Ghana, and Delanyo Dovlo, MD, MPH, Popolation Council, PO Box CT5203, Accra, Ghana.

After several attempts to make health for all reality, the Government of Ghana embarked on a comprehensive health sector reform process in 1987 to improve the health status of all people living in Ghana. Based on the success of the Navrongo Health Research Centre experiment, the Government of Ghana has launched the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative. CHPS is, thus, a development in a long legacy of commitment to community health care in Ghana. The Initiative works with the principle that households are primary producers of health and is a critical component of the national poverty alleviation programme. The CHPS initiative characterizes the key strategy for changing primary health care and family planning from a focus on clinical care at district and sub-district levels to a new focus on convenient and high quality services at community and household locations. This national programme of service delivery change is achieved by forging partnerships between health care providers and the communities they serve thus addressing the ‘demand' side of health service delivery which is invariably forgotten in most health sector reform processes. Evidence from where the initiative has been effectively implemented shows that the package of health services provided spans a range of reproductive health methods offered, improves the social acceptability of family planning services, and facilitates promotion of care, male participation in family planning, and other culturally appropriate activities for empowering couples to implement their reproductive goals – a move to achieving the health millennium development goals in Ghana.

Learning Objectives:

• participants will understand how the Government of Ghana is using evidence-based policy to increased access of health service to households and communities
• participants will learn how Ghana Health Service is using community based services to achieve the health MDG’s with evidence from two Districts

Keywords: Access and Services, Community-Oriented Primary Care

Related Web page: www.ghana-chps.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.