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This study used in-depth interviews to explore perceptions of medicine seller roles among a restricted random sample of 20 medicine sellers in North-West Cameroon. Interviews and analysis explored self-perception of their work/role, community perceptions, skills and knowledge, regulation, future plans, links with the formal health system and diversity among medicine sellers. [from abstract]

This article describes the early outcomes, achievements, and challenges from an initiative that hired university graduates without training in health information and provided on-the-job training and mentoring to create a new cadre of health worker in order to address the shortage of health information personnel within Botswana. [adapted from abstract]

This work explored perceptions of the roles of Kenyan non-physician clinicians in typical health system settings. [adapted from abstract]

In Mozambique, clinical staging may be the primary determinant of HIV/AIDS treatment decisions, and the task of staging commonly falls to non-physician clinicians. This study evaluated the quality of performance in clinical staging two years after the first Mozambican clinicians were trained in HIV/AIDS care. [adapted from abstract]

This research indicates that volunteers play an important role in improving people’s experience of care, building stronger relationships between services and communities, supporting integrated care, improving public health and reducing health inequalities. [from author]

Pacific health workforce planners must consider the potential impact on existing models of care and roles of advanced practitioners from the increasing number of medical graduates from both within and outside the region; particularly, the balance of doctors’ roles with those of established advanced health practitioners. [from author]

This paper reviews complementary roles to those of traditional health workers, focusing on extended and expanded scopes of practice. It describes international trends and approaches to the planning and delivery of a health workforce that move away from a structure based on traditional roles and scopes of practice [from author]

This article describes an assessment of the effects of community mobilisation through women’s groups, and health education through female volunteer peer counsellors on rates of infant care, feeding, morbidity, and mortality. [adapted from author]

This paper seeks to address a gap in the empirical literature in understanding the organisational challenges and benefits of introducing peer worker roles into mental health service teams. [from abstract]

This article describes the Lady Health Worker Program in Pakistan based on training women from local communities to provide specific, basic primary health-care treatment plus preventive services and the success of the program in enabling timely treatment, prevention and even screening. [adapted from author]

The authors examined how informal health markets operate from the viewpoint of informal providers (those without any government-recognised medical degrees) by drawing upon data from a household survey in 2002, a provider census in 2004 and ongoing field observations from a research site in Koppal district, Karnataka, India. [adapted from author]

This report outlines a project to apply a quality improvement approach to Ethiopia’s Health Extension Program, which was designed to improve access and utilization of quality preventive, promotive and curative health care services in an accessible and equitable manner to reach all segments of the population, with special attention on mothers and children. [adapted from author]

The purpose of the study was to explain the process implementing a new cadre of nurse practitioners role in British Columbia as it was occurring and to identify factors that could enhance the implementation process. An explanatory, single case study with embedded units of analysis was used. [adapted from abstract]

The authors conducted a comprehensive literature review on the informal health care sector in developing countries to determine thebasic characteristics of performance, cost, quality, utilization, and size of this sector. [adpated from abstract]

This article describes the development of a new mid-level medical worker in South Africa including the way in which scopes of practice and course design were negotiated and the progress during the early years. [adapted from abstract]

This study aimed to contribute an understanding of medicine sellers’ motivations and perceptions of roles in rural and urban North-West Cameroon as providers of first aid care, which is complementary rather than competitive to formal providers. [adapted from author]

Qualified health workers are expensive and often unavailable for blood pressure screening. In a poor, urban community the authors compared blood pressure measurements taken by non-health workers using electronic devices against qualified health workers. [from abstract]

This book outlines the impact of a package of public health interventions aimed at improving the quality of care of informal village doctors in a rural area of Bangladesh, where village doctors are the primary group of informal healthcare providers practising and dispensing modern medicines. [adapted from publisher]

The objective of this article was to study the role of informal health practitioners in delays in initiating tuberculosis (TB) treatment in new smear-positive TB patients. [from author]

This paper explores gaps and limitations in the conceptualisation, methodology and policy implications of debates about informal health care providers by examining a cross section of empirical studies. [from summary]

The objective of this study was to assess the willingness of Dutch patients to be treated by a physician assistant or a medical doctor under various time constraints and semi-urgent medical scenarios to determine the patients’ perspectives on using physician assistants as a means to bridge the growing gap between the supply and demand of medical services. [adapted from abstract]

This paper presents a case study of a multi-component school health promotion intervention in India that was delivered by lay school health counsellors, who possessed neither formal educational nor health provider qualifications. [from abstract]

The aim of this study was to explore contemporary lay health worker policy development processes and the extent to which issues of gender are taken up within this process. [from abstract]

This paper describes a systematically developed intervention for a lay health worker delivered, community-based intervention for schizophrenia care in three sites in India. [adapted from abstract]

This call to action advocates for the recognition of the economic and social value of volunteers in public health disaster situations and the development of policies to protect them.

This research aims to answer concerns about the magnitude, determinants and successful ways of reducing lay health worker attrition in health programs. [adapted from abstract]

This brief shows that lay health workers can successfully engage significant numbers of consumers in increasing knowledge and reducing barriers to health care quality. It also discusses the fundamental issues of monitoring performance, obtaining recognition and developing an effective training model. [adapted from author]

This presentation was part of the University of New South Wales’ short course on managing human resources for health. It outlines an attempt to create a new form of health workforce to not only fill a gap but to deliver services better than traditional health professionals. [adapted from author]

This article evaluates an intensive three-month course developed to train non-physician clinicians for remote health centres to address the unmet need for emergency obstetrical care in rural areas.

The objective of this review was to assess the effects of lay health worker interventions on childhood immunisation uptake. [from summary]