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. 2019 Feb 12;15(Suppl 1):e12715. doi: 10.1111/mcn.12715

Table 4.

Description for “original” and “new” sites of CHWa characteristics, training, and work load, as well as women'sb participation and perceived nutrition knowledge gain

Unweighted Reweighted c
Original New Original New Difference
(A) CHW socio‐economic and demographic characteristics
(N = 133)d (N = 98)d (N = 271)d (N = 268)d
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) P valuee
Age (years) 38.14 (8.93) 40.48 (9.24) 35.84 (9.3) 40.85 (8.92) <0.001
Number of children 3.23 (2.6) 4.25 (2.87) 2.77 (2.47) 4.05 (2.93) <0.001
Number years as CHW 4.53 (2.28) 3.69 (2.33) 4.04 (2.25) 4.3 (3.13) 0.24
Distance to site (min) 7.74 (15.11) 11.25 (20.14) 8.66 (14.61) 11.71 (21.36) 0.04
Work motivation scale 44.24 (8.68) 43.51 (8.77) 44.76 (8.66) 41.88 (9.26) <0.001
Vocabulary raw score 67.86 (9.88) 67.94 (8.09) 66.72 (9.33) 70.38 (8.79) 0.01
Vocabulary residualf −0.12 (9.1) −1.28 (6.12) −0.76 (8.51) −0.74 (5.84) 0.98
Proportion (n) Proportion (n) Proportion (n) Proportion (n) P value
Is head of household 0.42 (59) 0.3 (33) 0.4 (120) 0.27 (74) <0.001
Original resident in the same village 0.6 (84) 0.56 (62) 0.54 (163) 0.58 (161) 0.30
Education level
Primary 0.13 (18) 0.12 (13) 0.19 (57) 0.09 (25) <0.001
Some secondary 0.56 (79) 0.6 (66) 0.57 (172) 0.64 (177) 0.08
Secondary 0.29 (41) 0.27 (30) 0.23 (71) 0.26 (73) 0.42
Has other revenue 0.64 (90) 0.66 (73) 0.51 (156) 0.65 (181) <0.001
Speaks official Malagasy 0.37 (50) 0.44 (47) 0.33 (89) 0.47 (127) <0.001
(B) CHW training, use of materials, and nutrition messages
Training different from before? 0.81 (96) 0.76 (74) 0.83 (201) 0.76 (189) 0.07
More theoretical (than practical) 0.1 (12) 0.05 (5) 0.09 (21) 0.06 (16) 0.36
Use of materials
Health card 0.83 (111) 0.73 (77) 0.83 (227) 0.83 (225) 0.82
Counselling card 0.81 (108) 0.65 (69) 0.82 (223) 0.68 (184) 0.00
Posters 0.71 (95) 0.61 (65) 0.7 (190) 0.59 (160) 0.01
Radio 0.02 (3) 0.05 (5) 0.02 (6) 0.04 (12) 0.15
Messages given
Exclusive breastfeeding 0.56 (75) 0.39 (41) 0.61 (167) 0.43 (117) <0.001
Hygiene 0.68 (91) 0.69 (73) 0.58 (157) 0.67 (182) 0.03
Infant feeding 0.63 (84) 0.69 (73) 0.68 (184) 0.67 (183) 0.93
Vaccination 0.63 (84) 0.54 (57) 0.57 (154) 0.6 (163) 0.43
Diarrhoea 0.4 (53) 0.28 (30) 0.32 (88) 0.32 (87) 0.93
Complementary foods 0.55 (74) 0.53 (56) 0.54 (146) 0.5 (137) 0.44
Child sickness 0.64 (86) 0.5 (53) 0.59 (161) 0.49 (133) 0.02
Vitamin A 0.49 (65) 0.42 (45) 0.43 (118) 0.45 (122) 0.73
Minimum weight gain 0.37 (49) 0.41 (43) 0.4 (109) 0.51 (140) 0.01
Other 0.27 (36) 0.16 (17) 0.24 (66) 0.11 (30) <0.001
Difficulty conveying key messages
Exclusive breastfeeding 0.1 (13) 0.07 (7) 0.12 (33) 0.11 (29) 0.59
Hygiene 0.1 (13) 0.14 (15) 0.12 (32) 0.12 (33) 0.90
Infant feeding 0.05 (7) 0.17 (18) 0.07 (20) 0.22 (59) 0.00
Vaccination 0.04 (6) 0.07 (7) 0.04 (10) 0.05 (13) 0.52
Diarrhoea 0.06 (8) 0.02 (2) 0.04 (11) 0.01 (2) 0.01
Complementary foods 0.05 (7) 0.2 (21) 0.13 (34) 0.24 (66) <0.001
Child sickness 0.13 (18) 0.16 (17) 0.2 (54) 0.23 (62) 0.40
Vitamin A 0.03 (4) 0.03 (3) 0.05 (14) 0.07 (19) 0.37
Minimum weight gain 0.07 (10) 0.09 (10) 0.15 (40) 0.11 (30) 0.20
Other 0.27 (36) 0.16 (17) 0.21 (58) 0.19 (53) 0.60
(C) Women's participation in programme sites and perceived knowledge gained
(N = 2766) (N = 2126) (N = 6006)g (N = 5379)g
Proportion (n) Proportion (n) Proportion (n) Proportion (n) P value
Participated last 3 months 0.35 (960) 0.33 (701) 0.34 (2048) 0.35 (1856) 0.65
Member of household ever participated 0.7 (1929) 0.61 (1305) 0.68 (4081) 0.61 (3299) <0.001
Ever participated 0.57 (1583) 0.5 (1059) 0.55 (3322) 0.51 (2756) <0.001
Conditional on ever participation
Attended culinary demonstration 0.59 (329) 0.52 (106) 0.58 (779) 0.57 (246) 0.84
Health knowledge improved
Yes a lot 0.55 (539) 0.46 (151) 0.56 (1270) 0.53 (371) 0.12
Yes a little 0.31 (303) 0.31 (103) 0.28 (626) 0.28 (198) 0.80
Not really 0.13 (122) 0.21 (68) 0.15 (330) 0.16 (115) 0.25
Not at all 0.01 (12) 0.02 (5) 0.02 (39) 0.03 (20) 0.06
Participated in other nutritional programme 0.02 (59) 0.02 (42) 0.02 (104) 0.02 (115) 0.12

Note. CHW: community health worker.

a

Up to three former and current community health workers (CHWs) were interviewed in programme sites. Only data for the most recently employed CHWs (i.e., only one CHW per site) were included when computing the descriptive statistics.

b

A special questionnaire was administered in 2011 to women with children under 5 years of age in current or former participating communities.

c

The mean values for all factors were reweighted to balance the comparison groups, accounting for potential differences in selection of sites into the programme and into different durations of the programme by initial conditions. For reweighting, we used the product of two sets of estimated weights: The first set was based on a propensity score from a model of programme assignment during the first expansion in 2004 as a function of village level socio‐economic characteristics as well as a recent history of agro‐climatic shocks; the second set was modelled on subsequent entry in 2011.

d

The total number of CHWs with non‐missing data varied by characteristic. The minimum number of CHWs included across all characteristics by programme participation type is shown, with the exception of receptive vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary was assessed in a subset of sites, and information is included for the most recently employed CHWs in 71 “original” and 31 “new” sites. For the reweighted means, the counts for CHWs reflect the expanded dataset after reweighting.

e

P values are from t tests for comparisons of the reweighted means between “original” and “new” sites.

f

A residual score for receptive vocabulary knowledge was estimated post regression after conditioning on CHW age, education, and dialect spoken.

g

The counts for women in the reweighted means reflect the expanded dataset after reweighting.