{"id":90056,"date":"2025-02-06T02:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/transforming-child-health-how-community-incentives-drive-breakthroughs-in-pakistan-pakistan-observer\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T02:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:46:10","slug":"transforming-child-health-how-community-incentives-drive-breakthroughs-in-pakistan-pakistan-observer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/transforming-child-health-how-community-incentives-drive-breakthroughs-in-pakistan-pakistan-observer\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming Child Health: How community incentives drive breakthroughs in Pakistan &#8211; Pakistan Observer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A groundbreaking study published in The Lancet Global Health reveals how community-driven incentives can greatly improve child health outcomes in rural Pakistan. The Community Mobilization and Community Incentivization- (CoMIC) trial, conducted by researchers from Aga Khan University\u2019s Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD), offers a transformative model for addressing preventable illnesses such as childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia, which remain leading causes of death among children under five.<\/p>\n<p>The CoMIC trial is based on the recognition that behaviour change interventions should ensure active community engagement and adapt context-specific strategies to facilitate change (bottom-up approach for sustainable improvement).<\/p>\n<p>The findings revealed significant improvements in child health indicators in incentivized communities. Compared to the control groups, they included an 80% higher breastfeeding rate, a 50% rise in the use of oral rehydration treatments, a 30% improvement in cleanliness habit and a 30% higher immunization rate.Dr. Jai K. Das, Assistant Director at IGHD and lead author of the study explained: \u201cThe study shows that when communities are actively engaged, empowered, and take charge to set their own priorities, it leads to extraordinary results.<\/p>\n<p>The ability to choose non-cash rewards, such as water pumps or sanitation facilities, fostered a sense of ownership and accountability, driving sustainable behavior changes.\u201dIn Pakistan, the poorest populations are disproportionately affected by the substantial discrepancies in access to necessary health services.<\/p>\n<p>Less than one-third of rural households have access to adequate sanitation, while the nation\u2019s immunization rates are still at 66%. The findings showed that communities are more likely to invest when they are empowered to decide on incentives.<\/p>\n<p>This was evident by the fact that contributions including labour, land and supplies resulted in a cost-sharing rate of 36% above the 25% target.Dr. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, Founding Director of IGHD, emphasized the broader implications of the trial: \u201cThis trial demonstrates the potential of community-driven solutions in achieving scalable health improvements.<\/p>\n<p>It is a model that can be adapted in other low- and middle-income countries to address inequities and save lives.\u201dScaling this approach could address vaccine resistance, improve sanitation, and enhance child health outcomes across diverse contexts. The framework offers a practical and transparent mechanism for delivering community-level benefits while fostering accountability and long-term investment in health infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 2 -->\n\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 A groundbreaking study published in The Lancet Global Health reveals how community-driven incentives can greatly improve child health outcomes in rural Pakistan. The Community Mobilization and Community Incentivization- (CoMIC) trial, conducted by researchers from Aga Khan University\u2019s Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD), offers a transformative model for addressing preventable illnesses such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/pakobserver.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/karachi.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-karachi-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}