African Dietetics Journal | 23 February 2009
Effectiveness of Community Health Workers in Tuberculosis Screening within Rural Ethiopian Villages: A Five-Year Cohort Study
M, e, k, u, r, i, a, A, s, s, e, f, a
Abstract
Community health workers (CHWs) play a crucial role in rural tuberculosis (TB) screening programmes, particularly in resource-limited settings such as Ethiopia. A longitudinal cohort study design was employed using data from to . The study included 5,000 participants randomly selected from 50 villages across Ethiopia's Amhara Region. CHWs screened 75% of the target population with a sensitivity and specificity rate of 92% and 88%, respectively, indicating high accuracy in TB detection. The findings suggest that CHWs effectively contribute to TB screening efforts within rural Ethiopian villages, offering a cost-effective solution for early disease detection. Further research should investigate the sustainability of CHW programmes and explore integration with existing health systems. Treatment effect was estimated with $\text{logit}(p<em>i)=\beta</em>0+\beta^\top X_i$, and uncertainty reported using confidence-interval based inference.