Working With Community Health Workers to Increase Use of ORS and Zinc to Treat Child Diarrhea In Uganda: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Diarrhea remains the second leading cause of death among children, although nearly all deaths could be prevented with the use of oral rehydration salts (ORS). There is little evidence demonstrating why ORS use remains low and what can be done increase use. Although community health workers (CHWs) are often tasked with increasing ORS use, little is known about how CHWs should distribute these products to maximize coverage. We hypothesized that price and lack of convenience are important barriers to ORS use, and therefore examined two key features of ORS distribution: 1) charging vs. free distribution and 2) home delivery vs. client retrieval. We used a village-clustered randomized design across 118 villages in Uganda to experimentally vary the price and convenience of accessing ORS from CHWs. 

• IPC
• EDS