The role of community health workers in improving child health programmes in Mali

Table 4 Comparison of qualitative variables between households with and without a community health worker in the district of Djenné, Mali.

	Households without support from a community health worker † (n = 78)*		Households with support from a community health worker (n = 323)*		P value ±
Characteristics	Number households	%	Number household	%
Caregiver in charge of child < 5					0.589
Mother	73	94.8	310	96.9
Grand-mother	4	5.2	10	3.1
Level of education					0.577
Illiterate	68	87.2	258	80.9
Literate in local language	6	7.7	37	11.6
Primary	4	5.1	22	6.9
Secondary	0	0.0	2	0.6
Principal occupation					0.842
Housework	74	100.0	313	98.1
Other	0	0.0	6	1.9
Revenue generating activity					0.304
Yes	35	45.5	123	39.0
No	42	54.5	192	61.0
Geographical accessibility in raining season **					0.39
Floodable	24	30.8	116	35.9
Not floodable	54	69.2	207	65.1

Community health worker survey, April 2006
† These are households that were found to have no CHW support even though this was planned. They were used as a control group. * Totals may not sum to n = 78 and n = 323 due to missing observations; ± missing data not included in the calculation; ** Months of the raining season which makes roads inaccessible: June to February

ISSN: 1472-698X