Exploring acceptability, opportunities, and challenges of community-based home pregnancy testing for early antenatal care initiation in rural Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Many women in low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya, access antenatal care (ANC) late in pregnancy. Home pregnancy testing can enable women to detect pregnancy early, but it is not widely available. Our study explored the acceptability and potential of home pregnancy testing delivered by community health volunteers (CHV) on antenatal care initiation in rural Kenya. METHODS: This study was part of a public health intervention to improve uptake and quality of ANC. Between November and December 2020, we conducted 37 in-depth interviews involving women who tested positive or negative for a urine pregnancy test provided by CHVs; CHVs and their supervisors involved in the delivery of the pregnancy tests; facility healthcare workers; and key informants. Using Sekhon et al.'s framework of acceptability, the interviews explored participants' perceptions and experiences of home pregnancy testing, including acceptability, challenges, and perceived effects on early ANC uptake. Data were analysed thematically in NVivo12 software. RESULTS: Home pregnancy testing was well-received by women who trusted test results and appreciated the convenience and autonomy it offered. Adolescents cherished the privacy, preferring home testing to facility testing which could be a stigmatising experience. Testing enabled earlier pregnancy recognition and linkage to ANC as well as reproductive decision-making for those with undesired pregnancies. Community delivery of the test enhanced the reputation and visibility of the CHVs as credible primary care providers. CHVs in turn were motivated and confident to deliver home pregnancy testing and did not find it as an unnecessary burden; instead, they perceived it as a complement to their work in providing ANC in the community. Challenges identified included test shortages, confidentiality and safeguarding risks, and difficulties accessing facility-based care post-referral. Newly identified pregnant adolescents hesitated to seek ANC due to stigma, fear of reprimand, unwanted parental notification, and perceived pressure from healthcare workers to keep the pregnancy. CONCLUSION: Home pregnancy testing by CHVs can improve early ANC initiation in resource-poor settings. Mitigating privacy, confidentiality, and safeguarding concerns is imperative. Additional support for women transitioning from pregnancy identification to ANC is essential to ensure appropriate care. Future research should focus on integrating home pregnancy testing into routine community health services.

Four antenatal care visits by four months of pregnancy and four vital tests for pregnant mothers: impact of a community-facility health systems strengthening intervention in Migori County, Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Early attendance at antenatal care (ANC), coupled with good-quality care, is essential for improving maternal and child health outcomes. However, achieving these outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa remains a challenge. This study examines the effects of a community-facility health system strengthening model (known as 4byFour) on early ANC attendance, testing for four conditions by four months of pregnancy, and four ANC clinic visits in Migori county, western Kenya. METHODS: We conducted a mixed methods quasi-experimental study with a before-after interventional design to assess the impact of the 4byFour model on ANC attendance. Data were collected between August 2019 and December 2020 from two ANC hospitals. Using quantitative data obtained from facility ANC registers, we analysed 707 baseline and 894 endline unique ANC numbers (attendances) based on negative binomial regression. Logistic regression models were used to determine the impact of patient factors on outcomes with Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and likelihood ratio testing used to compare models. Regular facility stock checks were undertaken at the study sites to assess the availability of ANC profile tests. Analysis of the quantitative data was conducted in R v4.1.1 software. Additionally, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 37 purposively sampled participants, including pregnant mothers, community health volunteers, facility staff, and senior county health officials to explore outcomes of the intervention. The interview data were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded; and thematic analysis was conducted in NVivo. RESULTS: There was a significant 26% increase in overall ANC uptake in both facilities following the intervention. Early ANC attendance improved for all age groups, including adolescents, from 22% (baseline) to 33% (endline, p = 0.002). Logistic regression models predicting early booking were a better fit to data when patient factors were included (age, parity, and distance to clinic, p = 0.004 on likelihood ratio testing), suggesting that patient factors were associated with early booking.The proportion of women receiving all four tests by four months increased to 3% (27/894), with haemoglobin and malaria testing rates rising to 8% and 4%, respectively. Despite statistical significance (p < 0.001), the rates of testing remained low. Testing uptake in ANC was hampered by frequent shortage of profile commodities not covered by buffer stock and low ANC attendance during the first trimester. Qualitative data highlighted how community health volunteer-enhanced health education improved understanding and motivated early ANC-seeking. Community pregnancy testing facilitated early detection and referral, particularly for adolescent mothers. Challenges to optimal ANC attendance included insufficient knowledge about the ideal timing for ANC initiation, financial constraints, and long distances to facilities. CONCLUSION: The 4byFour model of community-facility health system strengthening has the potential to improve early uptake of ANC and testing in pregnancy. Sustained improvement in ANC attendance requires concerted efforts to improve care quality, consistent availability of ANC commodities, understand motivating factors, and addressing barriers to ANC. Research involving randomised control trials is needed to strengthen the evidence on the model's effectiveness and inform potential scale up.

Safeguarding in practice: anticipating, minimising and mitigating risk in teenage pregnancy research in urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

Safeguarding challenges in global health research include sexual abuse and exploitation, physical and psychological abuse, financial exploitation and neglect. Intersecting individual identities (such as gender and age) shape vulnerability to risk. Adolescents, who are widely included in sexual and reproductive health research, may be particularly vulnerable. Sensitive topics like teenage pregnancy may lead to multiple risks. We explored potential safeguarding risks and mitigation strategies when studying teenage pregnancies in informal urban settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. Risk mapping was initiated by the research team that had prolonged engagement with adolescent girls and teen mothers. The team mapped potential safeguarding risks for both research participants and research staff due to, and unrelated to, the research activity. Mitigation measures were agreed for each risk. The draft risk map was validated by community members and coresearchers in a workshop. During implementation, safeguarding risks emerged across the risk map areas and are presented as case studies. Risks to the girls included intimate partner violence because of a phone provided by the study; male participants faced potential disclosure of their perceived criminal activity (impregnating teenage girls); and researchers faced psychological and physical risks due to the nature of the research. These cases shed further light on safeguarding as a key priority area for research ethics and implementation. Our experience illustrates the importance of mapping safeguarding risks and strengthening safeguarding measures throughout the research lifecycle. We recommend co-developing and continuously updating a safeguarding map to enhance safety, equity and trust between the participants, community and researchers.

Voices and challenges of marginalized and vulnerable groups in urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya: building on a spectrum of community-based participatory research approaches.

Urbanization is rapidly increasing across Africa, including in Nairobi, Kenya. Many people, recent migrants and long-term residents, live within dense and dynamic urban informal settlements. These contexts are fluid and heterogeneous, and deepening the understanding of how vulnerabilities and marginalization are experienced is important to inform pointed action, service delivery and policy priorities. The aim of this paper is to explore vulnerabilities and marginalization within Korogocho and Viwandani informal settlements in Nairobi and generate lessons on the value of a spectrum of community based participatory research approaches for understanding health and well-being needs and pinpointing appropriate interventions. In the exploratory stages of our ARISE consortium research, we worked with co-researchers to use the following methods: social mapping, governance diaries, and photo voice. Social mapping (including the use of Focus Group Discussions) identified key vulnerable groups: marginalized and precarious child heads of households (CHHs), Persons with disability who face multiple discrimination and health challenges, and often isolated older adults; and their priority needs, including health, education, water and sanitation. The governance diaries generated an understanding of the perceptions of the particularly vulnerable and marginalized informal settlement residents regarding the various people and institutions with the power to influence health and wellbeing; while photo voice highlighted the lived experiences of vulnerability and marginality. Understanding and responding to fluid and intersecting marginalities and vulnerabilities within growing urban informal settlements is particularly critical to achieving inclusive urbanization, where no one is left behind, a theme central to the Sustainable Development Goals and Kenya's Vision 2030.

Policy and practices shaping the delivery of health services to pregnant adolescents in informal urban settlements in Kenya.

In Kenya, the pregnancy rate of 15% among adolescents aged 15-19 years is alarmingly high. Adolescent girls living in informal urban settlements are exposed to rapid socio-economic transitions and multiple intersecting health risks and may be particularly disadvantaged in accessing sexual reproductive health services. Understanding vulnerabilities and service-seeking behaviours from different perspectives is important in order to support the development and implementation of progressive policies and services that meet adolescents' unique needs within urban informal settlements. This study explored policy makers, community health service providers' and community members' perceptions of access to, and delivery of, sexual reproductive health services for pregnant adolescents in one informal urban settlement in Nairobi. We employed qualitative methods with respondents throughout the health system, purposively sampled by gender and diversity of roles. We conducted focus group discussions with community members (n = 2 female-only; n = 2 male-only), key informant interviews with policy makers (n = 8), traditional birth attendants (n = 12), community health volunteers (CHVs) (n = 11), a nutritionist (n = 1), social workers (n = 2) and clinical officers (n = 2). We analysed the data using thematic analysis. Government policies and strategies on sexual and reproductive health for adolescents exist in Kenya and there are examples of innovative and inclusive practice within facilities. Key factors that support the provision of services to pregnant adolescents include devolved governance, and effective collaboration and partnerships, including with CHVs. However, inadequate financing and medical supplies, human resource shortages and stigmatizing attitudes from health providers and communities, mean that pregnant adolescents from informal urban settlements often miss out on critical services. The provision of quality, youth-friendly reproductive health services for this group requires policies and practice that seek to achieve reproductive justice through centring the needs and realities of pregnant adolescents, acknowledging the complex and intersecting social inequities they face.

Implications of COVID-19 for safeguarding in international development research: learning, action and reflection from a research hub.

COVID-19 brings uncertainties and new precarities for communities and researchers, altering and amplifying relational vulnerabilities (vulnerabilities which emerge from relationships of unequal power and place those less powerful at risk of abuse and violence). Research approaches have changed too, with increasing use of remote data collection methods. These multiple changes necessitate new or adapted safeguarding responses. This practice piece shares practical learnings and resources on safeguarding from the Accountability for Informal Urban Equity hub, which uses participatory action research, aiming to catalyse change in approaches to enhancing accountability and improving the health and well-being of marginalised people living and working in informal urban spaces in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Sierra Leone. We outline three new challenges that emerged in the context of the pandemic (1): exacerbated relational vulnerabilities and dilemmas for researchers in responding to increased reports of different forms of violence coupled with support services that were limited prior to the pandemic becoming barely functional or non-existent in some research sites, (2) the increased use of virtual and remote research methods, with implications for safeguarding and (3) new stress, anxiety and vulnerabilities experienced by researchers. We then outline our learning and recommended action points for addressing emerging challenges, linking practice to the mnemonic 'the four Rs: recognise, respond, report, refer'. COVID-19 has intensified safeguarding risks. We stress the importance of communities, researchers and co-researchers engaging in dialogue and ongoing discussions of power and positionality, which are important to foster co-learning and co-production of safeguarding processes.

How to prevent and address safeguarding concerns in global health research programmes: practice, process and positionality in marginalised spaces.

Safeguarding is rapidly rising up the international development agenda, yet literature on safeguarding in related research is limited. This paper shares processes and practice relating to safeguarding within an international research consortium (the ARISE hub, known as ARISE). ARISE aims to enhance accountability and improve the health and well-being of marginalised people living and working in informal urban spaces in low-income and middle-income countries (Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Sierra Leone). Our manuscript is divided into three key sections. We start by discussing the importance of safeguarding in global health research and consider how thinking about vulnerability as a relational concept (shaped by unequal power relations and structural violence) can help locate fluid and context specific safeguarding risks within broader social systems. We then discuss the different steps undertaken in ARISE to develop a shared approach to safeguarding: sharing institutional guidelines and practice; facilitating a participatory process to agree a working definition of safeguarding and joint understandings of vulnerabilities, risks and mitigation strategies and share experiences; developing action plans for safeguarding. This is followed by reflection on our key learnings including how safeguarding, ethics and health and safety concerns overlap; the challenges of referral and support for safeguarding concerns within frequently underserved informal urban spaces; and the importance of reflective practice and critical thinking about power, judgement and positionality and the ownership of the global narrative surrounding safeguarding. We finish by situating our learning within debates on decolonising science and argue for the importance of an iterative, ongoing learning journey that is critical, reflective and inclusive of vulnerable people.