Boost Digital Application Decision Aide for Community Health Workers

Giving community health workers the information and resources they need on HIV and sexual health

Are you a community health worker or peer educator? Or are you responsible for supporting these incredible people who are vital to our health systems? If so – then welcome to Boost.

Boost is a digital job aide for community health workers and peer educators. It enhances their knowledge, skills, and confidence, so they can share accurate and actionable HIV, SRH, and other primary health information – helping them provide high quality care and support to their communities.

Why Boost?

Across sub-Saharan Africa community health workers play a vital role in the health system and are the primary source of health information for many. However, they often lack access to the clear, accessible, and accurate information they need.

Purpose built for community health workers

Boost provides a digital job aide developed for the sub-Saharan African context and co-created with over 100 community health workers across Southern Africa to support their specific knowledge needs and ways of working.

The Boost brand provides easy, up-to-date, visual and interactive materials on HIV, sexual health, TB, non-communicable diseases, mental health and other primary health information, available across a range of platforms. It supports community health workers’ ongoing learning and equips them with fun, interactive tools that they can use and share with their clients and peers.

Website

Access all the Boost content online at boost.avert.org in English, Shona and Ndebele

Google Play Store

Download the free Android native app to use offline

Organisational adoption

Partner with us and co-design a customised, co-branded version of Boost as part of your CHW programmes.

KaiOS

Go to the KaiOS store to download Boost for feature phones

Facebook

Join the Boost Facebook group to discuss ideas with other community health workers

Flexible for your organisation

There are over 50 Boost content units already free to access. Content units cover a wide range of health topics from HIV, sexual health, mental health, female genital schistosomiasis, and more! Additional content units or language versions can be added through funded partnerships. Offline screening and referral tools, data dashboards and co-branding are optional extras that can be enabled. Talk to us to find out more.

How is Boost making a difference?

Boost has been used by over 175,000 people across sub-Saharan Africa to support their own learning and client interactions.

Boost has been used by self-motivated individual community health workers and peer educators, as well as through organisational adoption of Boost as a programme tool. For example OPHID, a national Zimbabwean Organisation, has integrated Boost into their national HIV treatment and care programme.

A survey of Boost users in Zimbabwe* showed:

96% of users increased their confidence and improved communication with the clients they support by using the app.
100% of CHW supervisors reported that using Boost increases CHWs’ quality of service and they would encourage them to continue using it.

Youth Boost in Zimbabwe

Young people in Zimbabwe are known to have suboptimal uptake of essential HIV and sexual health services. To enhance the impact of Boost among OPHID community-based health workers in the Target Accelerate and Sustain Quality Care for HIV Epidemic Control with support from Vitol Foundation, from 2022-2024, OPHID and Avert fully translated the Boost Application into local languages and added in age-appropriate, evidence-based screening tools for providing community based health screening and referrals for young people aged 10-24 years. Screening tools to identify young people in need of referral for HIV testing, screening for sexually transmitted infections or female genital schistosomiasis were introduced into the Boost platform.

OPHID and Avert’s Boost impact in numbers:

Over 220,000 young people aged 15-24 screened for need for HIV testing, STI screening and mental health services resulting in over 91,000 health service referrals from community to facility
96% of community health workers using Boost increased their confidence and improved communication with the clients they support by using the app.
100% of community health worker supervisors reported that using Boost increases CHWs’ quality of service and they would encourage them to continue using it.
Increased uptake in underutilised health services by young people following use of Boost by community health workers
Over 10 accepted conference presentations at local (National AIDS Council 2023); regional (INTEREST 2022; ICASA 2023) and International (AIDS 2022 and 2024) conferences
Featured in UNICEF Podcast HIV re-imagined: Conversations for Change on community-based public health innovations. Tune into Episode 2 – Apps, Bots, and Chats: Innovations in health tech:
With support from Positive Action, OPHID will be training other local organisations working at community level in the use of Boost to improve fidelity, quality of health information and evidence-based referrals for essential health services.

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