Health Systems Strengthening through Community Mobilization for Postabortion Care

Efforts to strengthen health systems in the developing world have often failed to thoroughly involve communities. Community mobilization activities in Bolivia, Kenya, and Senegal to improve postabortion care provide examples of how governments and development agencies can engage communities and how small-scale, targeted projects can lead to broad health systems strengthening. Community mobilization allows community members to explore barriers to care, develop and implement action plans to address these problems, evaluate effectiveness, and plan next steps. By adapting the community mobilization curriculum for implementation in each country context, groups in all three nations were able to improve leadership, service delivery, the health workforce, health financing, and the availability of medical supplies for many health care services, not just postabortion.Master of Public Healt