Comparison of Home-Based Management of Fever/Malaria to Enhanced Health Facility-Based Care in Tororo, Uganda

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Investigator: Philip J. Rosenthal, MD
Sponsor: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Location(s): Uganda

Description

The investigators propose to assess whether an intervention to build capacity and improve delivery of drugs and diagnostics at government-run health facilities improves the health of children and quality of care delivered, as compared to 'standard care' currently available at health facilities, supplemented by services provided through the private sector and community-based interventions. The target population will be divided into 20 clusters, defined as the catchment area of lower-level public health facilities. Clusters will be randomized to the health facility intervention (HFI) or to standard care delivered from government-run health facilities, supplemented by services provided through the private sector and community-based interventions. The intervention is designed to address barriers to delivering quality care at health centers and will focus on three components: (1) training in-charges in health center management, (2) providing training to health workers in fever case management and patient-centered services, and (3) ensuring adequate supplies of artemether-lumefantrine and RDTs. Outcomes will be measured in three distinct populations: (1) cross-sectional surveys of children under 15 years randomly selected from households within the clusters; (2) a cohort of children under five randomly selected from households within the clusters and followed for 2 years; and (3) patients attending all government-run health facilities, including children under five and their caregivers participating in exit interviews on selected days every six months. The primary outcome of the study is prevalence of anemia in children under five.