Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will mobilize community health workers in the Pokhara metropolitan area to implement evidence-based interventions that address cardiovascular disease risk factors. Received a new $3 million grant from the Blood Institute. , the second largest city in Nepal. The researchers will collaborate with the Nepal Development Association, an NGO based in Nepal.

The five-year grant, called Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Research Practice in Pokhara, Nepal (SCALE-NCD), will begin in March 2024 and will be funded by Dinesh Neupane, Ph.D., M.S., Assistant Scientist; and Yoko Inagaki will lead the project. , MD, MPH ’22, is an assistant scientist in the Department of Global Health at the Bloomberg School.

Mortality rates from non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer are increasing around the world, with a disproportionate burden placed on low- and middle-income countries. The three main risk factors for NCDs include high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and smoking. Nepal’s health system suffers from a shortage of doctors and nurses and lacks scalable and sustainable models to address these key risk factors for NCDs at the local level.

The goal of SCALE-NCD is to develop a scientific basis for sharing clinical work with community health workers to fill the gap in health care workers who support hypertension and diabetes management and smoking cessation promotion in urban LMIC settings. and scale up interventions based on

“Community health workers are considered the backbone of health systems in many countries and have historically played an important role in reducing maternal, child, and infectious disease-related mortality, especially in rural areas. This project This will enable us to evaluate the emerging role of female community health volunteers in NCD management in urban settings in Nepal,” says Neupane.

A study led by Neupane et al.’s research team demonstrated that sharing tasks with local health workers can lower blood pressure and blood sugar levels and help people quit smoking, but this is not the case in everyday medical care in LMICs, including Nepal. Not fully implemented in the delivery system. The project involves CHWs conducting home visits, conducting blood pressure and diabetes screenings, assessing smoking status, referring individuals to health facilities for treatment, and providing counseling on smoking cessation and other lifestyle modifications. This will provide evidence for scaling up community-based interventions. and medication compliance.

“This implementation research study will help identify key elements to make community health worker-led interventions equitable, cost-effective, and sustainable. We hope to engage stakeholders throughout the cycle to ensure that our interventions are optimized and sustainable for urban health systems in LMICs,” says Inagaki.