Delegation of reproductive health tasks

There is a critical shortage of trained health personnel willing to serve in the northern Nigeria’s rural communities. One proven response to such shortages is to rapidly train and deploy frontline health personnel to take on specific and well-defined roles and tasks normally done by doctors.

There is a shortage of trained health personnel willing to serve in the northern Nigeria’s rural communities. The Population and Reproductive Health Partnership will be researching strategies to provide more frontline health workers to the region.

However, despite the widespread use of frontline workers in other countries over the last five decades-from China’s barefoot doctors to Tanzania’s clinical officers-there are many questions about the selection, training, and supervision of frontline workers that need to be answered if they are to be more widely used.

During the coming year the PRHP will begin exploratory research to: 

1) facilitate innovation in health worker selection, curriculum development, and methods of instruction

2) overcome non-evidence based obstacles to the training and deployment of frontline workers by sharing the results of this program with the Ministry of Health, multilateral organizations, and bilateral aid organizations working in Nigeria