Equipping El Salvador’s Health Workforce to Safeguard Global Health Security
By Stephanie Mork
Due to its geographical location on the Pacific coast, El Salvador is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events like droughts, floods, landslides, earthquakes, and tropical storms.
Health systems in El Salvador often bear the brunt of the damage from extreme weather events, leaving the country more exposed to emerging infectious disease threats that can wreak havoc on the population and limit further access to critical services like routine immunization and health care for women of reproductive age.
Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed major gaps in El Salvador’s health system — spurring the government to scale up health system reform with a focus on improving global health security measures.
“Community health workers in El Salvador are critical to prevent the spread of infectious diseases…but are often overworked and underrecognized…”
For example, El Salvador’s Ministry of Health recently joined the Pan American Health Organization, the World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank to establish the Mesa Consultiva Alliance for Primary Health Care in El Salvador. The Mesa Consultiva was created to have a more coordinated approach across key stakeholders to improve health inequities and access to primary health care services and address extreme weather events and emerging infectious disease threats.
Community health workers in El Salvador are critical to prevent the spread of infectious diseases with pandemic potential through community outreach and primary health care service delivery, but are often overworked and underrecognized, and have limited opportunities for professional growth.
PROPEL Health collaborated with USAID, the International Organization for Migration, and the Ministry of Health to facilitate the pilot of a training course for 100 community health workers on “Community Health with the One Health Approach.” The course focuses on health service delivery with the understanding that people, animals, and the planet are all intrinsically connected.
“It is important to apply the One Health approach in the community because it is a whole human health, animal health, and environment approach,” explained Ana Griselda Guerra, a community health worker who has participated in the PROPEL Health-supported training course. “If I have the objective of visiting a child or pregnant woman,” said Ana Guerra, “I will not only see the child or the woman and leave, but I will check the whole environment of the house because there are sometimes animals, or a river might pass behind the house. So, it is very important to make these visits with an integrated One Health approach.”
PROPEL Health also supported the establishment of a Public Health Emergency Operating Center and will provide technical assistance and capacity strengthening in the first year of operation.
“I learned that health promotion is more than just giving talks in schools, but we should be more aware of what is happening with the population and any outbreak of disease.”
The training curriculum includes training on zoonotic disease control, epidemiological surveillance, antimicrobial resistance, and coordination with the newly established Public Health Emergency Operating Center.
“I learned that health promotion is more than just giving talks in schools, but we should be more aware of what is happening with the population and any outbreak of disease,” said Pablo Alvarado, another community health worker who participated in the training course. “It is not just that the child has diarrhea, but to investigate the root cause of the disease and the source of contamination, whether it is contaminated water, poorly prepared food, etc.”
This training course will be the model for the One Health technician program, which will include two years of hybrid training, with the goal of certifying almost 4,000 health workers across El Salvador to improve broader health system responses to infectious disease threats.
By implementing a more integrated One Health approach to training health workers, El Salvador’s health system will be more prepared to withstand shocks and protect women and families from emerging infectious disease threats and maintain access to critical, routine health services.
Stephanie Mork is a Communications Manager at Palladium supporting USAID’s PROPEL Health project.
