The Impact of Community Health Workers on Child Malnutrition in the Philippines

NCT05774314 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: icmflourishrct
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 7,650
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 4

Brief Summary

This study will focus on a new community health worker (CHW) program called 'Flourish', which is implemented by Philippine non-governmental organization (NGO) International Care Ministries (ICM). ICM's core program is 'Transform', which is a poverty alleviation program that focuses on households living in ultra-poverty (less than 0.50 United States dollars (USD) per person per day). Transform leverages local community networks to identify 30 participants from the most marginalized households in the community. ICM then provides these participants with 15 weeks of health and livelihood education, as well as with health interventions, including childhood malnutrition treatment. In ICM's Flourish program, one of the 30 participants in each Transform program is nominated by their peers to become an ICM-supported CHW. The CHWs will not only provide health services after the conclusion of the Transform program for their fellow Transform participants' households, but they will also serve an additional 50+ households in their communities. These additional 'non-Transform' households will be identified by asking the Transform participants to nominate peers in their social networks that share similar socioeconomic backgrounds and whose households are perceived to also benefit from CHW services. The primary aim of this research is to assess the impact of CHWs on the prevalence of acute childhood malnutrition in hard-to-reach households within low-income communities. The investigators hypothesize that this study will show that CHWs are able to reduce the prevalence of acute childhood malnutrition in hard-to-reach households within low-income communities.

Conditions

Child Malnutrition

Keywords

Community Health Workers

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Child Malnutrition

  For children under 5 years old, child malnutrition is defined as weight-for-height Z-score less than -2 without edema. For children over 5 years old, child malnutrition is defined as BMI-for-age Z-score less than -2 without edema.

  Child malnutrition will be assessed only during the endline survey (February-March 2025, 18-months after enrollment into the study). Malnutrition status will be assessed as a single, point-of-time outcome at time of endline survey.

Study Arms (2)

Community Health Worker Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Behavioral: Community Health Worker Intervention

No Community Health Worker Intervention

NO INTERVENTION

Interventions

Community Health Worker Intervention BEHAVIORAL

Communities that are randomized into the Treatment arm will receive the Flourish program. Communities with a Flourish program will select and train a Community Health Worker from the Transform program participants. At the end of the Transform program, a Savings Group will be formed from the Transform program participants. The Savings Group will nominate households to participate in the Flourish program and research study. The Community Health Worker will approach the nominees and attempt to enroll them into the Flourish program and research study. If the nominees agree to be enrolled in the Flourish program, the Community Health worker will provide screening, referral, counseling, and treatment services to the household for the duration of the study.

Also known as: Flourish Program

Community Health Worker Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Months - 12 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Participants in the study must meet at least one of the criteria:
• Transform program participant and member of the savings group formed at the end of Transform
• Nominated by a savings group member to participate in the study
• Nominated by the local public health unit (based on confirmed malnutrition status) to participate in the study

You may not qualify if:

• Except for members of the savings group, households cannot participate in the study if they have previously received ICM programs.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• International Care Ministries, Philippines: lead
• University of Toronto: collaborator
• University of Waterloo: collaborator

Study Sites (4)

ICM

Bohol, Philippines

RECRUITING

ICM

Dipolog City, Philippines

RECRUITING

ICM

Dumaguete, Philippines

RECRUITING

ICM

Koronadal, Philippines

RECRUITING

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Child Nutrition Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Nutrition Disorders; Nutritional and Metabolic Diseases

Study Officials

• Lincoln L Lau, PhD

  University of Toronto

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Lincoln L Lau, PhD

CONTACT

6478520288; lincoln.lau@utoronto.ca

Helena Manguerra, MPH

CONTACT

7034080140; helena.manguerra@caremin.com

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: March 6, 2023
• First Posted: March 17, 2023
• Study Start: July 11, 2023
• Primary Completion: March 1, 2025
• Study Completion: May 1, 2025
• Last Updated: February 5, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-02

Locations

PH (4)