Recorded presentation

Peggy Koniz-Booher, Senior Technical Advisor, URC, 7200 Wisconsin Ave, suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814, 301-941-8534, pkoniz_booher@urc-chs.com and Elena Hurtado, MPH, Technical Advisor IEC/BCC, Calidad en Salud/University Research Co., LLC, 15 Avenida, Guatemla City, 01013, Guatemala.

In 2002, the Guatemalan Ministry of Health began the development of a community-based integrated health care strategy, known popularly as AIEPI AINM-C. This expanded brand of community IMCI, currently functioning in approximately 2000 communities throughout 8 of 26 health areas, aims to reduce the morbidity and mortality of women and children under five. The strategy includes two complementary and interrelated components: 1) growth monitoring, health promotion and illness prevention at home and in the community, and 2) integrated case management of childhood illnesses, neonatal and maternal care, including prenatal, postpartum and the provision of family planning services. In the first component, monthly monitoring and promotion of the growth of all children under two years of age is seen as the focal intervention, key to identifying and reducing the consequences of malnutrition, providing opportunities to mobilize community members and to disseminating health information. The second component includes the detection, treatment, prompt referral and transport of complicated cases. Since the conceptualization of AIEPI AINM-C, URC has played the central technical assistance role in the development of operational guidelines and protocols; training strategies and materials; an integrated set of counseling tools; the execution of a series of cascade trainings of almost 14,000 community volunteers and about 1,000 community facilitators; the development of behavior change communication strategies and materials aimed at promoting positive individual and household behaviors; the design and implementation of a four-step methodology to stimulate community participation; and the execution of tutorials for trainers and community health workers to improve performance.

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