Photo Credit: Alexandre Bonneau-Afroto/ALIMA
Using Teachers as Health Workers to Fight Malaria in Zambia
Country: Zambia
Amount: $1,000,000
Duration: 2 years
Problem
Malaria is the fourth-leading cause of death in low-income countries, leading to 600,000 deaths annually. Mortality is particularly severe among children.
In Zambia, while nearly 90% of children are enrolled in school, many suffer from poor health that disrupts their learning. This results in considerable suffering due to untreated illnesses, missed education opportunities and, ultimately, diminished economic prosperity.
Approach
Healthy Learners partners with the Zambian Government to train teachers as school health workers, making schools an entry point into the healthcare system.
The model reaches 840,000 students nationwide.
Our grant supports experimentation to integrate malaria screening into the model.
Path to Scale
The program is already integrated into the Zambian government's health and education systems from federal to regional levels, employing government teachers.
RCT results will serve as evidence for program scale-up across sub-Saharan Africa.
Why we think the grant is cost-effective
The Healthy Learners school health program is highly cost-effective due to its low annual cost of $1.50 per child, which is 15% of the cost of a typical community health worker program and less than 5% of an average school feeding intervention.
The program’s two-prong focus on both health and education are synergistic; students with improved health outcomes translates to 0.7 years more schooling.