Topics: CHW role, Community health workers, Family planning, Training

Region and Country: Ghana

This report describes a study conducted in Ghana to explore utilizing Community Health Officers (CHOs) and Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to increase interest in using IUDs and other long-acting and permanent methods. The study utilized a pre- and post-test quasi-experimental design and included two intervention groups (where CHOs and CHVs were given additional training and support) and one comparison group. The study showed five-fold increases in the number of new IUD and implant users recorded by CHOs who carried out insertions at the community-level, suggesting that training CHOs to educate communities about long-acting methods and enabling them to provide them at the community level can be both effective and affordable.