Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)

Programs

Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH)

last updated Sep 27, 2011

Overview

Legal Status: 
Private (not-for-profit)
Year Launched: 
1985
Stage: 
Existing/expansion stage

Funding

Primary Source of Funding: 
Donor
Funders: 
MacArthur Foundation

Technology

Technology Used: 
Phones, Computer › Internet
Summary: 

SEARCH (Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health) is a non-government organization that designs community-based health care delivery solutions for priority maternal and child health problems. SEARCH has become known for publishing the results of population-based research trials of new low-cost interventions. SEARCH also seeks to influence state, national and global policy through its “laboratory of 100 villages” in Gadchiroli District, Maharashtra.

SEARCH trains local people to diagnose and treat infants with common infections at the home and village level in a remote, tribal region, and tests new inexpensive interventions that local people can implement after training. SEARCH conducts rigorous trials demonstrating what interventions are effective, and translating these field lessons to the global community of public health practitioners through the publication of articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Key program components: 

SEARCH has developed a network of trained professionals that are similar to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) trained by the Govt of India. SEARCH's employees work part-time to deliver medical care at a very low cost to the patient. The organization has a field area of 86 rural villages and 40 tribal villages with a population of 100,000.

Improving Options for the Delivery of Newborns Government facilities are very poor and private providers are not operating in this area. Women have little choice but to deliver babies at home. SEARCH facilitates this with its network of community health workers who conduct deliveries and also play the role of a "pediatrician".

Community-Based Health Facility The SEARCH hospital is a medical hospital catering to the needs of the tribal people around Gadchiroli, approximately 2 million individuals. In addition to serving more than 20,000 patients each year, the hospital runs medical camps and provides ambulatory services. Its services, including surgeries, are provided at very affordable rates. Food at the hospital is cooked according to local traditions of tribal people, and the leaders in this community named the hospital for a local goddess.

SEARCH is also piloting the use of modern technology to get more coverage and better results, using mobile phones and the internet.

Neonatal mortality in the district declined by 70 percent over seven years. The program also helped cut the rate of illness in half for mothers during and immediately after childbirth

Program history: 

Abhay and Rani Bang founded SEARCH in 1985 after training in public health at Johns Hopkins University. Gadchiroli district in India's Maharashtra state is a very poor, least developed rural agricultural area, with low female literacy and limited access to health services. From 1986 to 1993, SEARCH trained traditional birth attendants and conducted a field trial of the community-based management of pneumonia in children. These activities provided a field base and community acceptance for SEARCH. Learning from the experience of the government health care system which tribal people rarely avail, SEARCH's hospital was built after consultation with tribal leaders.

Time magazine recognized the Bangs for their achievement to global health in 2005. Read the story here. They were said to have contributed to research and policy on reducing infant mortality, and all at the cost of only $2.64 per child.

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