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Community Health Workers are trained to deliver Timed and Targeted Counselling (ttC) for pregnant women – a home-visitor model providing timely messages about physical healthcare for mother and child. Working in West Bank/Gaza, this project will research the effectiveness of an evidence-informed integrated service package–Enhanced ttC (EttC)–expanding ttC to holistically meet physical, mental, cognitive and socio-emotional needs of newborns and mothers. A two-stage, cluster randomized study hypothesizes that EttC will reduce postnatal depression, increase physical, social and emotional development of infants in their first 12 months and position EttC for scale-up, creating a service package for infant bodies and brains to reach their fullest potential.

Building off the successful completion of two proof-of-concept projects funded by Grand Challenges Canada, Canadian innovators will develop a potentially transformative way to manage childhood diarrhea in low-resource settings. Diarrhea is the second-leading cause of death of children under five, with the majority of deaths occurring in low-income countries. It is also a major contributor to…Challenges Canada, the researchers will develop and test a ‘test and treat’ method of addressing childhood diarrhea.The new management algorithm has the potential to displace existing guidelines for the testing and treatment of childhood diarrhea, which recommend antimicrobial therapy if blood is found in a child’s stool. Studies funded by Grand Challenges Canada’s Point of Care Diagnostics and Stars in Global Health programs showed that these guidelines may leave significant numbers of cases untreated where death could be averted. Published by the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, one study documented that over one-third of 671 babies hospitalized…led by David Goldfarb, MD (formerly of McMaster University, now at the University of British Columbia), along with Jeffrey Pernica, MD (McMaster) and collaborators Tonya Arscott-Mills, MD (Botswana-UPenn Partnership), Margaret Mokomane, MSc (Botswana National Health Laboratory), and Loeto Mazhani, MD (University of Botswana) the researchers will test the new management algorithm through a randomized control…

A novel, intensive, nurse home visitation program for first time pregnant youth in poor areas of São Paulo will be tested with a randomized controlled trial – the first of its kind in Latin America. The aim is to mitigate the harmful effects of toxic stress over the developing brain when still in the mother’s womb and infancy and so improve outcomes for the developing child.…

…is already the number one killer worldwide. Risk factors, such as hypertension, can be diagnosed and treated effectively using evidence-based management models in high-income countries.This innovation aims to take advantage of lessons learned from the Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP), with a nationwide effective knowledge translation strategy achieving high awareness and control rates. The goal is to apply the key principles to high-risk hypertensive communities in low- and middle-income countries (in this case in Tanzania) and disadvantaged groups, including Aboriginal communities in Canada. To address the challenges, community intervention research will be conducted, integrating technical innovation with evidence-based implementation at both policy and patient levels.…develop and implement a community food procurement policy to lower sodium and calories; (3.) To fully develop an innovative cell phone-based text messaging interface and central server database for broad community screening and tracking of blood pressure using automated tools; (4.) To conduct evaluation trials to determine the impact of the innovative technologies to achieve improved hypertension…

More than 60 million under-five children in India are unable to reach their developmental potential, adding to the vicious cycle of intergenerational transmission of poverty. While there could be multiple approaches to this problem, the innovators find that a critical opportunity lies in the universally prevalent practice of infant massage. Massage is a very integral…the cusp of science and traditional wisdom, and can be leveraged as a conduit to layer a more holistic set of early child development interventions.The practice is supported by a network of massage specialists who traditionally provide massages to mothers and newborns in the first few weeks after birth. This already established traditional network will be leveraged as 'agents of change' to train and support mothers and families in adopting the proposed package of ECD interventions. The intervention aims to improve infants’ development outcomes, and to lay a strong foundation for these children’s future life courses.

Yes to Emotions in Youth (YEY) is an evidence-based, youth-led, and culturally sensitive emotional intelligence training program that addresses psychopathology and helps prevent mental illness in youth. YEY aims to develop five emotional competencies (identifying, understanding, expressing, regulating, and using emotions) that are key to increasing youth’s resilience, health, autonomy, intra- and interpersonal wellbeing, as well as academic and future vocational adjustment.  Researchers at the Lebanese American University will integrate the YEY program into the educational curriculum for high school students within five public schools using a youth-empowering-youth model where sessions are delivered by youth leaders and facilitators to maximize community skill- and capacity-building.

The project is a multi-channel low-tech solution to support victims of gender-based violence (GBV) in rural Philippines to report cases and seek help. It is coupled with back-end modern analytics to better inform local authorities and support service providers and policy makers. The project tests a mix of online and offline reporting channels: an SMS …Iloilo, Philippines. Victims of GBV are able to report incidences through a channel of their choice (SMS, Facebook chat or speaking with local Access Managers) and decide for themselves whether they’d like to remain anonymous and/or have the local authorities intervene. The presence of these parallel reporting channel also increases last mile access to support…

Issue In Zambia, Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) have historically been used to conduct health education and case management of common ailments and diseases. In recent years, CHV roles have expanded to cater to a wider scope of preventive and curative activities. However, most CHVs perform their duties primarily on a volunteer basis, and the increase in time spent on prevention and caring for the sick in their communities and at health facilities leaves CHVs with less time for their livelihoods. New approaches are needed to counter the lack of motivation,…management software in rural facilities, but their use by community health volunteers did not result in improved health status of the community members compared with a control group. All the CHVs in the intervention sites were retained throughout the study duration and most indicated that the devices acted as an incentive to continue performing their…

This project is a supply chain innovation involving a product bundling model, leveraging an existing network of women micro-entrepreneurs. The two-prong social entrepreneurship looks to improve the choice and access to family planning products; as well as access to weaning food for infants through the bundling of food for sale, and provision of free contraceptives. These two products would be simultaneously marketed to a target group, the mothers of…

Isolated communities on Mfangano island in Lake Victoria lack access to Kenya’s health care system, and less than 50% of mothers receive antenatal care or deliver with skilled attendants. Ekialo Kiona’s Health Navigation (HN) model strengthens the emergency referral system for mothers and newborns by establishing a durable pathway for healthy pregnancies, safe deliveries, and effective referrals. This innovation mobilizes local experts, community health volunteers (CHVs), to act…