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

Abstract #104004

Sam Sochea and Pal La Ine. Organization, Reproductive and Child Health Alliance, #160, St 71 Tonle Basac, P O Box 2471, Phnom Penh, 855, Cambodia, 888 12 906377, ssochea@racha.org.kh

Almost ninety percent of babies are born at home in Cambodia. In order to improve antenatal, obstetric, and post-natal health, “the community” has to become the major field for interventions and for change. The Reproductive and Child Health Alliance (Racha) and the Ministry of Health have developed a successful model that identifies “potential” community resources and turns them into agents for change. For example, safe motherhood village health contests among pregnant women are conducted. These contests are supported by interest from a self sustaining micro-credit system with over 5,000 loans and no defaults. In addition, interest is also used to pay for emergency obstetric care transportation (two birds – safer motherhood and needed small loans for subsistence farmers for one stone – a self sustaining micro-credit system). Health centers make contracts with hard to reach villages to achieve targeted village levels of service utilization, including antenatal care, TT2 injections, and assisted deliveries by professionally trained providers. For achieving targeted service utilization levels, villagers earn wells for their villages (75 villages have now completed successful contracts). Over 3,000 pagoda workers educate about and promote such things as the benefits of instant breast feeding for new mothers. Yet another intervention includes a home-birth kit sales program with over 80,000 distributed. The MoH/Racha Cambodia model demonstrates how to make “potential” community resources a reality, an approach with lessons easily adapted to other countries, and an approach essential for very low resource countries

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify community-based support mechanisms used in Cambodia and apply these mechanisms to other resource poor country settings

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.