African Health Initiative

Ghana CHPS+ Program

Program Leadership:

• John Koku Awoonor-Williams, M.D., M.P.H., M.P.P., FGCPS, Ph.D.,
  Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ghana Health Service

• Ayaga A. Bawah, M.A., Ph.D.
  Senior Lecturer, Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana

In 2009, DDCF funded the six-year pilot project (GEHIP Population Health Implementation and Training (PHIT) Partnership) aimed at strengthening the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) initiative in three districts in the Upper East region of Ghana. GEHIP is a strategy of health service delivery that prioritizes efforts at the local community level. GEHIP supported an improvement in health services that ultimately led to a 30% reduction in under-five mortality rates among a total population of 450,000 residents in the three intervention districts in the Upper East region of Ghana.

The second phase of AHI work in Ghana is called CHPS+ and is an expanded version of the GEHIP program, from three pilot districts to three regions (Upper East, Northern and Volta regions) through a partnership with the Ghana Health Service, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the University of Ghana and others. Core aspects of the CHPS+ program include ongoing training in health systems leadership and management, routine use of data for decision-making, and the use of implementation science to improve the quality of health service delivery. Additionally, the team established a national CHPS+ coordinating group responsible for monitoring expansion of the program and its population health impact and ensuring that data and research are used to improve health system weaknesses. CHPS+ invested in training district and facility health staff in each region on principles of community engagement, worker training and leadership development and created Service Learning Districts, which are districts of excellence that were selected in each region to share best practices. Finally, an evaluation was conducted to assess the overall impact of CHPS+ on population health, with a specific focus on reducing morbidity and mortality rates among mothers, newborns and children.

DDCF co-funds the CHPS+ program in partnership with the Ghana Health Service, the Korea International Cooperation Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Implementing partners of CHPS+ include the Ghana Health Service, the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, the Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana, the University of Health and Allied Sciences, the University for Development Studies, and the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

Learn about the other African Health Initiative Phase 2 Countries by visiting the links below: