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Research Interests:
Background: Since 2007, BRAC has been implementing malaria prevention and control programme in 13 endemic districts of Bangladesh under the National Malaria Control Programme. This study was done to examine the role of different... more
Background: Since 2007, BRAC has been implementing malaria prevention and control programme in 13 endemic districts of Bangladesh under the National Malaria Control Programme. This study was done to examine the role of different communication media in bringing about changes in knowledge and awareness which facilitate informed decision-making for managing malaria-like illnesses.
Poor infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices is one of the major causes of under nutrition and stunting in <5 children in Bangladesh. BRAC in partnership with AED is implementing Alive and Thrive (A&T) program to promoter optimum... more
Poor infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices is one of the major causes of under nutrition and stunting in <5 children in Bangladesh. BRAC in partnership with AED is implementing Alive and Thrive (A&T) program to promoter optimum infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices in rural Bangladesh to address this. BRAC's community health workers (Shasthya Shebika, SS) are the frontline health workers for this programme. Through works as volunteer they get some monetary return from the sales of health services and products to the community. The A & T programme designed an additional incentive package for staff motivation based on activities related to six specific indicators. Objective: The Study aimed to find the changes occurring in the specified indicators with respect to the IYCF practice resulting from the introduction of incentive packages. Methods: Qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, informal discussions, and focus group discussions were used to collect relevant data. Pre-incentive data were compared with post-incentive data to compare changes. Results: The study observed some positive changes in colostrums feeding, initiation of breast-feeding within first hour, responsive feeding and, feeding during illness, hygiene practices, etc. But no changes were observed in case of exclusive breast feeding and age-specific complementary feeding practices. At pre-intervention the SSs were demoralized due to heavy work load, and also price hike in recent times. This lessened their interest to spare extra time for the services. But, with the offer of monetary incentive, situation changed for better. Conclusion: Performance-based incentive scheme successfully motivated the frontline health workers to change the behaviuors of the target women.
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Bangladesh is one of the countries with a high rate of infant malnutrition and the major cause is inappropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices. To improve the situation, both GO/NGO organizations are working intensively... more
Bangladesh is one of the countries with a high rate of infant malnutrition and the major cause is inappropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices. To improve the situation, both GO/NGO organizations are working intensively on the issue. In pursuance of this, AED and BRAC became partners in the Alive and Thrive project (A&T) for improving infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices through motivation and counseling by BRAC's volunteer community health workers as frontline workers during 2009-2013. The study aimed to assess the " incentive package " implemented in the study area through the frontline health workers of BRAC. A qualitative research design used in-depth interviews, informal discussions, narratives and focus group discussions to gather relevant data. Findings reveal that in spite of heavy work load and unstable market situation from price hike, SSs were not too much demoralized and continued to work because of the incentive package. All the performance indicators of the SS showed improvement. The implication of this for program is discussed.
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Background: The National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme (NTP) of Bangladesh succeeded in achieving the dual targets of 70 % case detection and 85 % treatment completion as set by the World Health Organization. However, TB prevention... more
Background: The National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme (NTP) of Bangladesh succeeded in achieving the dual targets of 70 % case detection and 85 % treatment completion as set by the World Health Organization. However, TB prevention and control in work places remained largely an uncharted area for NTP. There is dearth of information regarding manufacturing workers' current knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) on pulmonary TB which is essential for designing a TB prevention and control programme in the workplaces. This study aimed to fill-in this knowledge gap. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was done in multiple workplaces like garment factories, jute mills, bidi/tobacco factories, flour mills, and steel mills using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Data on workers' KAP related to pulmonary TB were collected from 4800 workers in face-to-face interview.
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... Presbyopic Patients: The Reading Glass Project of BRAC Syed Masud Ahmed Qazi Shafayetul Islam November 2009 ... Samples were taken from the two sadar upazilas where the pilot is being experimented and also from Ayesha Abed Foundation.... more
... Presbyopic Patients: The Reading Glass Project of BRAC Syed Masud Ahmed Qazi Shafayetul Islam November 2009 ... Samples were taken from the two sadar upazilas where the pilot is being experimented and also from Ayesha Abed Foundation. Key findings ...
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If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note... more
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. ...
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The general perception that dentistry is expensive keeps many people away from seeking treatment from registered professionals and make them hostage to the services of non-registered lay practitioners. In Bangladesh, no statistics on... more
The general perception that dentistry is expensive keeps many people away from seeking treatment from registered professionals and make them hostage to the services of non-registered lay practitioners. In Bangladesh, no statistics on dental health problems or seeking dental healthcare is available which necessitates study for informed planning of a preventive programme. BRAC Research and Evaluation Division carried out a
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ABSTRACT
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... Fazle Hasan Abed Chairperson, BRAC ... Syed Masud Ahmed and Mohammad Awlad Hossain ... are integrated in its core activities and the success of microcredit programme as a health intervention tool is reported elsewhere (Nanda 1999,... more
... Fazle Hasan Abed Chairperson, BRAC ... Syed Masud Ahmed and Mohammad Awlad Hossain ... are integrated in its core activities and the success of microcredit programme as a health intervention tool is reported elsewhere (Nanda 1999, Bhuiya and Chowdhury 2002, Pitt et al. ...
Over 43 years after independence in 1971 the health system of Bangladesh has gone through a number of reforms and established an extensive health infrastructure in the public and private sectors. Bangladesh has achieved impressive... more
Over 43 years after independence in 1971 the health system of Bangladesh has gone through a number of reforms and established an extensive health infrastructure in the public and private sectors. Bangladesh has achieved impressive improvements in population health status by achieving MDG 4 by reducing child death before the 2015 target, and rapidly improving on other key indicators including maternal death, immunization coverage, and survival from some infectious diseases including malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhoea. However, some challenges for the health system remain critical. First, lack of coordination across two different ministries for implementing primary health-care service delivery in rural and urban areas; second, critical shortage of trained health providers with appropriate skill-mix in the public sector and widespread increase in unregulated informal providers for an alternative source of care; third, low annual allocation to health in the government budget and high ...
Poverty is increasingly being understood as a multidimensional phenomenon. Other than income-consumption, which has been extensively studied in the past, health, education, shelter, and social involvement are among the most important... more
Poverty is increasingly being understood as a multidimensional phenomenon. Other than income-consumption, which has been extensively studied in the past, health, education, shelter, and social involvement are among the most important dimensions of poverty. The present study attempts to develop a simple tool to measure poverty in its multidimensionality where it views poverty as an inadequate fulfillment of basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, health, education, and social involvement. The scale score ranges between 72 and 24 and is constructed in such a way that the score increases with increasing level of poverty. Using various techniques, the study evaluates the poverty-measurement tool and provides evidence for its reliability and validity by administering it in various areas of rural Bangladesh. The reliability coefficients, such as test-retest coefficient (0.85) and Cronbach's alpha (0.80) of the tool, were satisfactorily high. Based on the socioeconomic status def...