Building Community-based Health Programs to Promote Health and

Prevent Disease in Bohol

The Visayas Primary Health Care Services, Inc. (VPHCS), with the support of the Asian
Community Trust (ACT) has been implementing a project “Building community-based
health programs to promote health and prevent disease in Bohol.”

The project areas are Barangay Sto. Nino in the Municipality of San Miguel and
Barangay Caluasan in the Municipality of Dagohoy in Bohol. The communities have
been affected by the failure of the Malinao Dam Project which has worsened their
economic situation that in turn affected their health conditions.

The project which started in April 2010 works with the farmers’ organization in Sto.
Nino, the Hugpong Mag-uuma sa San Miguel (HUMASA) or the Farmers Association in
San Miguel and the farmers’ organization Mga Mag-Uuma sa LACALSANDA Apektado
sa Land Levelling (MALALA) (Farmers in Lacalsanda affected by Land levelling) in
Caluasan.

A basic health skills training was conducted last August 9 – 14 for community health
workers (CHWs) in order to equip them with knowledge and skills to build community
based health programs which shall address the common health problems in their
communities.
Capacity building is a primary strategy in the project which will enable the CHWs and
the leaders of the people’s organizations to launch health campaigns that will address the
prevalence of common preventable and communicable diseases. Direct health services by
project staff and volunteer health professionals shall also address the diseases in the
communities.

The Asian Community Trust (ACT), Japan's first fund raising-style charitable trust, was
established in 1979 to assist people at the grass-roots level in Asian developing countries.
It has supported projects in more than five Asian countries, in fields spanning health,
medical treatment, education, youth training, and development of rural communities. It
has funded several projects in urban poor settlers and fishermen communities in Cebu.

Health programs that answer the health needs of the communities shall be instituted in the
project by the trained CHWs together with the leaders and members of their people’s
organizations. Community participation and involvement in designing the health
programs appropriate for the communities shall be ensured as it is a hallmark in
community-based health programs and is the cornerstone in the primary health care
approach of health service delivery.
The health programs are based on results of surveys and key informant interviews that
gathered data on the socio-demographic profile and health data including common health
problems, causes of deaths, the immunization status and nutritional status of
preschoolers, health services available in the community, methods of family planning and
nutritional and food practices of the families.

Posted by Visayas Primary Health Care Services, Inc. at 8:27 PM August 30, 2010

http://vphcs.blogspot.com/2010/08/building-community-based-health.html