Group Medical Visit and Microfinance Intervention for Patients With Diabetes or Hypertension in Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Incorporating social determinants of health into care delivery for chronic diseases is a priority. OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of group medical visits and/or microfinance on blood pressure reduction. METHODS: The authors conducted a cluster randomized trial with 4 arms and 24 clusters: 1) usual care (UC); 2) usual care plus microfinance (MF); 3) group medical visits (GMVs); and 4) GMV integrated into MF (GMV-MF). The primary outcome was 1-year change in systolic blood pressure (SBP). Mixed-effects intention-to-treat models were used to evaluate the outcomes. RESULTS: A total of 2,890 individuals (69.9% women) were enrolled (708 UC, 709 MF, 740 GMV, and 733 GMV-MF). Average baseline SBP was 157.5 mm Hg. Mean SBP declined -11.4, -14.8, -14.7, and -16.4 mm Hg in UC, MF, GMV, and GMV-MF, respectively. Adjusted estimates and multiplicity-adjusted 98.3% confidence intervals showed that, relative to UC, SBP reduction was 3.9 mm Hg (-8.5 to 0.7), 3.3 mm Hg (-7.8 to 1.2), and 2.3 mm Hg (-7.0 to 2.4) greater in GMV-MF, GMV, and MF, respectively. GMV and GMV-MF tended to benefit women, and MF and GMV-MF tended to benefit poorer individuals. Active participation in GMV-MF was associated with greater benefit. CONCLUSIONS: A strategy combining GMV and MF for individuals with diabetes or hypertension in Kenya led to clinically meaningful SBP reductions associated with cardiovascular benefit. Although the significance threshold was not met in pairwise comparison hypothesis testing, confidence intervals for GMV-MF were consistent with impacts ranging from substantive benefit to neutral effect relative to UC. Incorporating social determinants of health into care delivery for chronic diseases has potential to improve outcomes. (Bridging Income Generation With Group Integrated Care [BIGPIC]; NCT02501746).

Correction to: Human-centered design as a guide to intervention planning for non-communicable diseases: the BIGPIC study from Western Kenya.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Human-centered design as a guide to intervention planning for non-communicable diseases: the BIGPIC study from Western Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Non-communicable disease (NCD) care in Sub-Saharan Africa is challenging due to barriers including poverty and insufficient health system resources. Local culture and context can impact the success of interventions and should be integrated early in intervention design. Human-centered design (HCD) is a methodology that can be used to engage stakeholders in intervention design and evaluation to tailor-make interventions to meet their specific needs. METHODS: We created a Design Team of health professionals, patients, microfinance officers, community health workers, and village leaders. Over 6 weeks, the Design Team utilized a four-step approach of synthesis, idea generation, prototyping, and creation to develop an integrated microfinance-group medical visit model for NCD. We tested the intervention with a 6-month pilot and conducted a feasibility evaluation using focus group discussions with pilot participants and community members. RESULTS: Using human-centered design methodology, we designed a model for NCD delivery that consisted of microfinance coupled with monthly group medical visits led by a community health educator and a rural clinician. Benefits of the intervention included medication availability, financial resources, peer support, and reduced caregiver burden. Critical concerns elicited through iterative feedback informed subsequent modifications that resulted in an intervention model tailored to the local context. CONCLUSIONS: Contextualized interventions are important in settings with multiple barriers to care. We demonstrate the use of HCD to guide the development and evaluation of an innovative care delivery model for NCDs in rural Kenya. HCD can be used as a framework to engage local stakeholders to optimize intervention design and implementation. This approach can facilitate the development of contextually relevant interventions in other low-resource settings. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02501746, registration date: July 17, 2015.

Leveraging the power of partnerships: spreading the vision for a population health care delivery model in western Kenya.

BACKGROUND: The Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) has been a model academic partnership in global health for nearly three decades, leveraging the power of a public-sector academic medical center and the tripartite academic mission - service, education, and research - to the challenges of delivering health care in a low-income setting. Drawing our mandate from the health needs of the population, we have scaled up service delivery for HIV care, and over the last decade, expanded our focus on non-communicable chronic diseases, health system strengthening, and population health more broadly. Success of such a transformative endeavor requires new partnerships, as well as a unification of vision and alignment of strategy among all partners involved. Leveraging the Power of Partnerships and Spreading the Vision for Population Health. We describe how AMPATH built on its collective experience as an academic partnership to support the public-sector health care system, with a major focus on scaling up HIV care in western Kenya, to a system poised to take responsibility for the health of an entire population. We highlight global trends and local contextual factors that led to the genesis of this new vision, and then describe the key tenets of AMPATH's population health care delivery model: comprehensive, integrated, community-centered, and financially sustainable with a path to universal health coverage. Finally, we share how AMPATH partnered with strategic planning and change management experts from the private sector to use a novel approach called a 'Learning Map®' to collaboratively develop and share a vision of population health, and achieve strategic alignment with key stakeholders at all levels of the public-sector health system in western Kenya. CONCLUSION: We describe how AMPATH has leveraged the power of partnerships to move beyond the traditional disease-specific silos in global health to a model focused on health systems strengthening and population health. Furthermore, we highlight a novel, collaborative tool to communicate our vision and achieve strategic alignment among stakeholders at all levels of the health system. We hope this paper can serve as a roadmap for other global health partners to develop and share transformative visions for improving population health globally.

Bridging Income Generation with Group Integrated Care for cardiovascular risk reduction: Rationale and design of the BIGPIC study.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality worldwide, with >80% of CVD deaths occurring in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Diabetes mellitus and pre-diabetes are risk factors for CVD, and CVD is the major cause of morbidity and mortality among individuals with DM. There is a critical period now during which reducing CVD risk among individuals with diabetes and pre-diabetes may have a major impact. Cost-effective, culturally appropriate, and context-specific approaches are required. Two promising strategies to improve health outcomes are group medical visits and microfinance. METHODS/DESIGN: This study tests whether group medical visits integrated into microfinance groups are effective and cost-effective in reducing CVD risk among individuals with diabetes or at increased risk for diabetes in western Kenya. An initial phase of qualitative inquiry will assess contextual factors, facilitators, and barriers that may impact integration of group medical visits and microfinance for CVD risk reduction. Subsequently, we will conduct a four-arm cluster randomized trial comparing: (1) usual clinical care, (2) usual clinical care plus microfinance groups only, (3) group medical visits only, and (4) group medical visits integrated into microfinance groups. The primary outcome measure will be 1-year change in systolic blood pressure, and a key secondary outcome measure is 1-year change in overall CVD risk as measured by the QRISK2 score. We will conduct mediation analysis to evaluate the influence of changes in social network characteristics on intervention outcomes, as well as moderation analysis to evaluate the influence of baseline social network characteristics on effectiveness of the interventions. Cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted in terms of cost per unit change in systolic blood pressure, percent change in CVD risk score, and per disability-adjusted life year saved. DISCUSSION: This study will provide evidence regarding effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce CVD risk. We aim to produce generalizable methods and results that can provide a model for adoption in low-resource settings worldwide.

Impact of Bridging Income Generation with Group Integrated Care (BIGPIC) on Hypertension and Diabetes in Rural Western Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Rural settings in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) consistently report low participation in non-communicable disease (NCD) treatment programs and poor outcomes. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to assess the impact of the implementation of a patient-centered rural NCD care delivery model called Bridging Income Generation through grouP Integrated Care (BIGPIC). DESIGN: The study prospectively tracked participation and health outcomes for participants in a screening event and compared linkage frequencies to a historical comparison group. PARTICIPANTS: Rural Kenyan participants attending a voluntary NCD screening event were included within the BIGPIC model of care. INTERVENTIONS: The BIGPIC model utilizes a contextualized care delivery model designed to address the unique barriers faced in rural settings. This model emphasizes the following steps: (1) find patients in the community, (2) link to peer/microfinance groups, (3) integrate education, (4) treat in the community, (5) enhance economic sustainability and (6) generate demand for care through incentives. MAIN MEASURES: The primary outcome is the linkage frequency, which measures the percentage of patients who return for care after screening positive for either hypertension and/or diabetes. Secondary measures include retention frequencies defined as the percentage of patients remaining engaged in care throughout the 9-month follow-up period and changes in systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and blood sugar over 12 months. KEY RESULTS: Of the 879 individuals who were screened, 14.2 % were confirmed to have hypertension, while only 1.4 % were confirmed to have diabetes. The implementation of a comprehensive microfinance-linked, community-based, group care model resulted in 72.4 % of screen-positive participants returning for subsequent care, of which 70.3 % remained in care through the 12 months of the evaluation period. Patients remaining in care demonstrated a statistically significant mean decline of 21 mmHg in SBP [95 % CI (13.9 to 28.4), P < 0.01] and 5 mmHg drop in DBP [95 % CI (1.4 to 7.6), P < 0.01]. CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of a contextualized care delivery model built around the unique needs of rural SSA participants led to statistically significant improvements in linkage to care and blood pressure reduction.