Increasing Coverage of Child Health Interventions in Uganda using the Reaching Every District/Child Approach

From January 2017 to December 2018, the USAID flagship Maternal Child Survival Program (MCSP) worked with the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MOH) and two of USAID’s recently awarded Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services (RHITES) projects to identify, demonstrate, cost, and document a package of “essential” low-cost, high-impact child health interventions.

This brief focuses on JSI's work through MCSP adapting and applying the Reaching Every District/Reaching Every Child (RED/REC) approach, which was first used successfully in immunization, to enhance the population’s equitable and sustainable access to a broader package of child health interventions.

RED/REC is the most recent iteration of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) RED approach, which aims to improve the planning and management of resources, quality and reliability of service delivery, linkages between health facilities and communities, active monitoring and use of data, as well as supervision and mentoring of health workers. RED/REC was adopted in Uganda in 2003 and it has successfully strengthened immunization systems at health districts, sub-districts, and community level across the country.

Key findings were that:

• The application of RED/REC to other child health interventions beyond immunization was associated with increased uptake of the child health interventions.
• Applying RED/REC practices to other child health interventions helped health managers at the district and health facility levels to appreciate and use their data, recognize and address gaps in coverage, and identify underserved communities and strategies for reaching them.
• The sub-national experience of applying RED/REC informed the drafting of a national guide on using catchment area-based planning and action for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) services.

JSI/MCSP. 2019.