Call for Submissions: Reimagining the Frontline - The Evolving Roles of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in a Changing World

Dear HIFA Colleagues,

Are you a researcher operating in the community health space?

Sage Health Service Insight Journal, a JCR-ranked, peer-reviewed, fully Open Access journal with an Impact Factor of 2.5. launched a Special Collection focused titled:

Reimagining the Frontline:

The Evolving Roles of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in a Changing World
 https://journals.sagepub.com/topic/collections-his/002164/hisa

Your perspective would be invaluable to this collection, especially at a time when CHWs are at a pivotal crossroad. From navigating funding pressures and the health impacts of climate change to harnessing AI and digital tools, their roles are evolving faster than ever. This collection seeks to capture that transformation through rigorous, forward-looking research.

We welcome research articles and review articles on these topics: 

• Sustainable financing and economic models in a constrained landscape 
• Digital transformation: AI, mHealth, and data equity
• Adapting to emerging health threats and new health conditions 
• CHW resilience and wellbeing

Submission deadline: 13 July 2026

Additionally, authors may be eligible for APC discount through: 

• Sage Publishing Open Access Agreements (institutions with an agreement with Sage) 
  https://www.sagepub.com/explore-our-content/blogs/posts/sage-perspectives/2025/10/01/what-happens-after-you-submit-to-a-special-collection 
• Research4Life country discounts (50% or 100% waiver for Category A and B countries, respectively)

Please note that only the highest applicable discount would apply to the standard publication fee, as authors would be unable to stack the discounts.

We deeply appreciate your consideration and would be delighted to feature your work in this Special Collection. Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.

Should you have any questions about the Special Collection, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Guest Editors directly: Abimbola.Olaniran AT outlook.com and Roosa.Sofia.Tikkanen AT fhi.no. For journal-related queries, please contact: Katalin.Orosz AT sagepub.co.uk

Thank you so much for considering this invitation. I truly look forward to the possibility of featuring your work.

Best regards,

Drs Abimbola Olaniran & Roosa Sofia Tikkanen Guest Editors, Health Services Insights Special Collection

HIFA profile: Abimbola A. Olaniran (MB;BS, PhD, EMBA) is a physician, researcher, and digital health entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience at the intersection of clinical care, health systems research, and policy in Africa. He continues to collaborate with local and international partners as well as national governments across Africa on health policy, workforce planning, and implementation research. His mission is to ensure that the AI revolution serves the most underserved, building from the continent, for the continent. Abimbola.Olaniran AT outlook.com

 

🔷 

Just to add: In addition, if I can support any CHW's and team colleagues and managers in a contribution using Hodges' model, I would be pleased to do so.

My source: HIFA list

c/o HIFA - Publications re. primary health care & community health

Dear [HIFA] friends and colleagues with an interest in primary health care and community health:

Since my last communication with you more than 6 months ago, the entire field of global health has continued to be upended by our US government, with unconscionable effects on millions of people around the world, on advancements in global health research and its ethical foundations, and on the careers of thousands and thousands of people working around the world in the field of global health. As I said before, and I repeat now the obvious, it will take decades to build back what has been destroyed and to regain respect from the rest of the world for the United States and the values that most of us hold dear.

William Foege, eminent global health leader and former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote this biting editorial <https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/18/rfk-jr-public-health-threats-william-foege-smallpox/> in which he said, among other things, 

"We will live through this drought of values, principles and facts and again apply our talents to improving global health and happiness. Do not back down.”

Atul Gwande, now one of the foremost champions of primary health care and community health of our time (even though he is, like me, an erstwhile surgeon!) and former Director of the USAID Bureau of Global Health during the Biden administration, gave an eloquent presentation of his perspective on the aftermath of the destruction of USAID on 28 April 2025 at the Harvard School of Public Health.

You can watch this here:
<https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=Atul+Gwande+presentation+at+Harvard+School+of+Public+Health+April+28%2c+2025&mid=26DA144398CF1F613D0A26DA144398CF1F613D0A&FORM=VIRE>.

Here are a few items of possible interest:

The Fourth International Symposium on CHWs will be held virtually next week.

I was most fortunate to be able to attend the second International Conference on Primary Health Care was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from October 6-10. It was a glorious event, with 750 attendees, mostly from Africa but with strong representation from UNICEF, WHO, Africa CDC, and other international organizations. 

The conference was sponsored by the International Institute for Primary Health Care – Ethiopia. <https://iphce.org/> Directors of PHC from 45 different African countries were present along with at least 50 community health workers from across Africa. There was palpable enthusiasm for the growing momentum for PHC across Africa.

Abhay and Rani Bang are world-renowned champions of community-based primary health care through their work with SEARCH <https://www.searchforhealth.ngo/> (Society for Education, Action, and Research) in Gadchiroli, India, with tribal people. Their seminal publications on the effectiveness of community-based primary health care and community health workers as well as their contributions to India’s national program for reducing neonatal mortality through home-based neonatal care, among others, have gained for them global recognition. Attached is an English translation of an article about their life’s work that was published in April Der Spiegel in the leading German magazine, Der Spiegel.

Nicholas Kristof has continued to share with the world some of the heart wrenching effects of the collapse of the United States Agency for International Development. The New York Times opinion columnist wrote <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/opinion/trump-usaid-cuts.html> on 20 September 2025 on the human dimension of the shutdown of USAID, citing estimates that 690,000 will die in 2025 and 829,00 will die in 2026 as a result of cutbacks in USAID funding, and 3.1 million children will die during Trump’s second term from these cuts (a PDF is attached if the link doesn’t work for you [mod: HIFA does not carry attachments]).

Two recent publications on novel approaches to reducing child mortality have gained widespread attention.

One study <https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34152/w34152.pdf> in Kenya provided a one-time transfer of $1,000 to poor families and observed a decline of nearly half in under-5 mortality as well as in infant mortality. Another study reported that wrapping

A recently reported study <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12462887/> from Uganda found that giving mothers fabric treated with permethrin, a long-acting insecticide to protect against mosquito-born illnesses, as a baby wrap dramatically reduced malaria infections in the infants carried in them. There were 66 percent fewer cases among those children compared with babies in the untreated wraps. By the end of the six-month study, only 16 percent of children in the treated wrap group had been sick with malaria, compared with 34 percent in the untreated wrap group, many of whom had multiple malaria episodes.

Now available for purchase on Amazon.com are several important publications related to community-based primary health care and community workers.

Feel free to share this email and these resources with anyone else or with any relevant listserve you may have access to.

You are receiving this email because of your interest in primary health care and community health.

If you know of anyone that you think would like to be included in the listserv, just send me the person’s name and email address.

Warm regards, Henry

Henry B. Perry, MD, PhD, MPH Senior Associate, Health Systems Program Department of International Health Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Baltimore, MD, USA 21205 Hperry2 AT jhu.edu

HIFA profile: Henry Perry is a Senior Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA. Professional interests: Community health and primary health care. hperry2 AT jhu.edu

Universal Health Coverage Day c/o CHIC mailing list

Dear Peter,

Today, we recognize Universal Health Coverage Day and join partners around the world to advocate for #HealthForAll. How will we get there? Professional community health workers (CHWs) who are salaried, skilled, supervised, and supplied.

We have a long way to go. Millions of CHWs - 70% women - are not paid, supported, or supplied. And now, new evidence from the Coalition and collaborators spotlights the severity of stock-outs experienced by CHWs on the frontlines of care: CHWs are out of stock-out nearly ⅓ of the time, and the problem is getting worse.

This #UHCDay, we hope you'll join our #SupplyCHWs campaign to highlight the unacceptable frequency at which CHWs in low- and middle-income countries experience stock-outs and call for solutions to address this widespread issue.

Join the Campaign

In Solidarity,
The Coalition

 

READ: The first ever global estimate of the extent of stock outs among CHWs
SHARE: One-page summary with everything you need to know
ACT: Share the findings on social media and tag decision-makers to take action

Curious about the Coalition's other work? Read our latest update here and sign up to stay in the loop!)

 INDIVIDUAL

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 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

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GROUP

My access to health care Cognitive / Conceptual My health literacy (and other literacies)	logistics, stock control, 'Just in Time' Systematic Literature Review 'Coverage'?
Universal Health Coverage/Care communities paraprofessionals - lay individuals	Funding, Workforce planning SDGs Professional community health workers (CHWs) who are salaried, skilled, supervised, and supplied.

Olaniran, A., Briggs, J., Pradhan, A. et al. Stock-outs of essential medicines among community health workers (CHWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): a systematic literature review of the extent, reasons, and consequences. Hum Resour Health 20, 58 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-022-00755-8
https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-022-00755-8