Political connections and psychosocial wellbeing among Women's Development Army leaders in rural amhara, Ethiopia: Towards a holistic understanding of community health workers' socioeconomic status

Svea Closser, Kenneth Maes, Erick Gong, Neha Sharma, Yihenew Tesfaye, Roza Abesha, Mikayla Hyman, Natalie Meyer and Jeffrey Carpenter

Social Science & Medicine, 2020, vol. 266, issue C

Abstract: Little empirical research exists on the effects of health work on Community Health Workers' (CHWs') social relationships and status, yet these factors are important in understanding the broad social and behavioral drivers and impacts of CHW programs. This is particularly true for unpaid CHWs. Engaging with others as a CHW might help a worker to embody a valued role in society as a selfless, caring individual; or it might strengthen bonds with others and improve social networks and social capital. By combining qualitative, ethnographic, and survey data collected in rural Amhara, Ethiopia from 2013 to 2016, we evaluated the extent to which unpaid female workers in Ethiopia's Women's Development Army (WDA) were better able than their peers to achieve cultural consonance by building desired social connections or fulfilling locally salient models of virtuous womanhood. We conducted a cultural consensus survey (n = 74) and measured cultural consonance in a larger survey of adult women, including WDA leaders (n = 422). We also conducted participant observation and interviews with health officials, local health staff, and WDA leaders.

Keywords: Ethiopia; Community health workers; Cultural consonance; Volunteer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362030592X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:266:y:2020:i:c:s027795362030592x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113373

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().