Factors Influencing Community Health Worker Behaviors

Community health workers (CHWs) are essential to a strong primary health care system and play a critical role in service provision. Uplifting CHW programs can bring further confidence to the health system, especially given CHWs’ ability to build trust with the communities they serve. It is, therefore, important to understand the many factors influencing CHWs and how to best support them in their work.

Breakthrough ACTION conducted a global literature review to identify and explore factors influencing CHW behavior. The project also conducted supplemental interviews with CHWs and others working with them in four countries to ensure a more holistic understanding of CHWs’ lived realities. Finally, Breakthrough ACTION held a virtual consultation to summarize the synthesis of the literature and interviews and gather additional insights into the multitude of factors that influence CHW behavior.

These factors were then mapped into categories against the Provider Behavior Ecosystem domains and are summarized in the Factors Influencing Community Health Worker Behaviors: Literature Review Synthesis.