Health outreach services play an important role in connecting people in rural, remote, or underserved communities with information and resources that can improve their health. In the Lao PDR, the outreach guidelines for staff at frontline health facilities were revised recently so they are better prepared to deliver maternal and child health and nutrition services for children during their first 1,000 days of life.
The revised guidelines include seven services: antenatal care, postnatal care, family planning, nutrition growth monitoring for children under five years old, immunization, and two new services for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis prevention and screening. Additionally, the guidelines have clear protocol for providing people centered care by building trust, addressing communication/language barriers, improving privacy, and referring high risk pregnant adolescent girls and women and malnourished children to treatment at better equipped health facilities.
Building on insights from the 2020 Advance UHC supported gender assessment, the guidelines were revised by the Ministry of Health in late 2024 with support from the World Bank, Australian government, Global Fund, and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). Integrated outreach services aim to improve maternal and child health and nutrition, reduce malnutrition in young children, address infant and child care, provide vacination, and prevent communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Furthermore, they ensure a robust integration of gender actions into outreach efforts by providing valuable information for engaging pregnant and reproductive age women, and postpartum mothers in the care of infants and young children within their community. Gender sensitive provisions, such as arranging a private space for women for physical examination, counselling and disease screening, are also being instituted.
