While a lot of attention has been dedicated to the health and well-being of children under 5 years old, the needs of older children and adolescents have been historically overlooked. Although the period of life between 5 and 14 years of age is critical for physical, psychological, cognitive and social development, children in this age group face health-related challenges higher than previously realized. Many of these problems are caused or compounded by inadequate access to prevention and treatment for school-age children, often resulting in delated treatment which futher exacberate health challenges. Since 2010, Healthy Learners (HL), an international NGO based in Lusaka, has partnered with the Zambian Government to develop a comprehensive school health program, which makes schools an entry point into the healthcare system by training and supporting teachers as community health workers, tasked to engage with local communities, promote health behaviors, support the provision of preventive services, and treat and refer sick learners to health facilities. In this project, we will rigorously evaluate the impact of this programme on a range of health and education outcomes. We will implement a Randomized Controlled Trial in 225 schools over three years, where we will compare the HL model to a pure control group (business as usual) and an enhanced control group where only preventive services will be provided. The results will inform the potential scale-up of this low-cost school health programme to the rest of Zambia and neighbouring countries.

Funding: USAID (DIV), MRC