Lynne Gaffikin, DrPH¹, Amy N Kleine, MPH, MSW², Robbyn T Lewis, MPH², Amanda Adu-Amankwah, RN³, Sylvia Deganus, MD³, and Saleh Ahmed, MPH, MS². (1) Evaluation and Research Technologies for Health, 222 Goodale Road, Baltimore, MD 21202, (2) Cervical Cancer Prevention Program, JHPIEGO, 1615 Thames Street, Baltimore, MD 21231, 410-537-1923, akleine@jhpiego.net, (3) Cervical Cancer Prevention Program, JHPIEGO - Ghana, 116 Freetown Avenue, East Legon, Accra, Ghana

In an effort to increase recruitment for cervical cancer prevention services at a semi-rural health center in Ghana, community health nurses were trained to deliver educational messages as part of an outreach strategy and book appointments with women for a visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) test. An evaluation of activities conducted between May and September 2003 focused on the effect of outreach on recruitment to this service. During this period, 191 outreach sessions were conducted during which 1,247 women made appointments, and 68.3% of these women were later tested. The average number of monthly VIA tests increased from 145 to 208, and the percentage of tests performed in this five-month time period attributable to outreach efforts was 81.9%. An assessment of any changes in the population’s demographic profile revealed no significant change in the age distribution of women recruited. However, the test-positive rate changed from 6.46% in the 17 months before outreach to 4.41% in the five months of the outreach effort. Before outreach, 31% of all women tested were from outside of the focus sub-district. This decreased to 15% during the outreach period, allowing for increased coverage of the eligible population within the focus sub-district. This project demonstrates that a recruitment strategy using existing human resources can successfully increase both participation in an important health intervention and local coverage targets.

Learning Objectives: