Strengthening digital community health: Lessons from designing and implementing digital tools for community health in four African countries

Download the white paper.

Community health workers (CHWs) are a critical part of the health system in many countries, delivering essential health services directly to communities. In malaria-endemic countries, CHW cadres play a crucial role by actively engaging in disease prevention, treatment, and health promotion. Digital tools can increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of care that CHWs provide by streamlining data capture, providing clinical decision support, and tracking supplies.

In this context, this white paper discusses ongoing work by the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)’s Digital Community Health Initiative (DCHI) to strengthen digital community health systems in Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Senegal, and Zambia. In these four countries, Digital Square is partnering with ministries of health, software developers, and other key actors to support the design and development of community-level digital tools.

The objectives of this white paper are two-fold: 1) to share insights and lessons learned from developing digital community health tools in Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Senegal, and Zambia; and 2) to make recommendations based on the insights to inform country health leaders, policymakers, implementing partners, software developers, or other stakeholders who are supporting the design and development of digital community health tools in similar settings.