February 12, 2014

Impact Evaluation of a Pharmacy Assistant Training Program in Malawi

The Global Medicines Program has been awarded a three-year grant from the Barr Foundation to evaluate a pharmacy assistant (PA) training program in Malawi. Joseph Babigumira will lead the study to evaluate the potential impact of the training program on morbidity and mortality due to illnesses that are the highest contributors to mortality among children under five years of age in Malawi – malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea.

The study has four aims:
1. Determine the difference in access to ACTs, antibiotics and ORS between communities with trained PAs at the public health centers compared to communities where PAs are not deployed.
2. Estimate the potential impact of any observed increase in access to ACTs, antibiotics and ORS attributable to PA training and deployment on under-5 malaria-, pneumonia-, and diarrhea-specific mortality respectively.
3. Determine the costs associated with scaling-up such a program
4. Estimate the potential cost-effectiveness of the program

The Pharmacy Assistant training program is a three-year effort to develop and launch an innovative certificate-level program that seeks to train at least 150 Pharmacy Assistants for health facility deployment to improve pharmaceutical management in rural Malawi. VillageReach, in collaboration with the Malawi College of Health Sciences, the Malawi Ministry of Health, and the UW Global Medicines Program, is coordinating the training program. Read more about the training program here.