Community health workers in maternal and child health care: What we can learn from less developed countries

While much progress has been made toward achieving the Healthy People 2010 maternal and child health goals, there are a number of areas that have proven resistant to positive change. These include: use of preconception care, rates of cesarean birth, preterm births, low birth weight, and maternal complications during labor and delivery. There are still socioeconomic, racial, and cultural disparities in access to maternal and child health care, as a result of which many disparities in health status remain. A number of less developed countries have enhanced access to maternal and child health care through the use of community health workers of various kinds. This paper analyzes and creates a typology of the kinds of community health workers that have been used globally in maternal and child health and makes recommendations concerning how quality of and access to maternal and child health care in the U.S. might be improved through the use of some of these providers.