Effect of community engagement interventions on child health care utilization: a quasi-experimental study in Afar and Benishangul Gumuz Regions, Ethiopia
Abebe Gebremariam Gobezayehu, John N Cranmer, Gurmesa Tura Debelew, Tamiru Kassa Desalew, Aynalem Hailemichael Frew, Dagnew Hagezom Kahissay, Mariamawit Asfaw, Meles Solomon, Daniel Ngemera, Tiyese Chimuna, Bizuhan Gelaw Birhanu · 2026
Read Effect of community engagement interventions on child health care utilization: a quasi-experimental study in Afar and Benishangul Gumuz Regions, Ethiopia by Abebe Gebremariam Gobezayehu, John N Cranmer, Gurmesa Tura Debelew, Tamiru Kassa Desalew, Aynalem Hailemichael Frew, Dagnew Hagezom Kahissay, Mariamawit Asfaw, Meles Solomon, Daniel Ngemera, Tiyese Chimuna, Bizuhan Gelaw Birhanu (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13289245.txt.
Description
Abebe Gobezayehu and co-authors measure, in a 2026 study, what three years of community engagement did for child health care in two of Ethiopia's hardest-to-serve regions. In Afar and Benishangul Gumuz, distance and weak outreach keep sick children home and vaccines missed. A partnership of the health ministry, UNICEF, and a university sent quality teams, festivals, dialogues, and women's conferences into fourteen districts to close that gap.
Between the baseline and endline surveys, illness among young children fell by about half, and the share of sick children brought to a facility rose. Full immunization coverage climbed from forty to sixty-six percent. Mothers who joined the community activities were nearly four times as likely to have fully immunized children. The authors credit the engagement model, while noting that residence, schooling, and family size also shaped the gains.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Abebe Gebremariam Gobezayehu, John N Cranmer, Gurmesa Tura Debelew, Tamiru Kassa Desalew, Aynalem Hailemichael Frew, Dagnew Hagezom Kahissay, Mariamawit Asfaw, Meles Solomon, Daniel Ngemera, Tiyese Chimuna, Bizuhan Gelaw Birhanu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 58 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |