Community Health Workers Take Screening to Urban Pune and Rural Daund
Early detection saves lives, but for many families in low-income urban settlements and rural villages, a routine health check is easy to put off. Deep Griha Society’s community health workers (CHWs), who are part of our ongoing Diabetes Research Study, are working to change that by taking health camps directly into communities in and around Pune.
This quarter, the team conducted three health camps across three areas, screening participants for blood sugar, blood pressure, weight and other basic health indicators. Alongside screening, participants received health advice and protein supplements, and three people who needed further care were referred to hospital and have started treatment.
Cancer screening for women in Janawadi, Pune
On 21 July, the team held a health camp at Janawadi–Janata Vasahat in Pune, in partnership with the Family Planning Association of India. The camp reached 86 participants, with a focus on women’s health:
- 42 women were screened for breast cancer
- 21 women underwent cervical cancer screening
- 2 women screened positive and were referred for further evaluation and care
Door-to-door health checks in Kasurdi, Taluka Daund
On 24 July, the team travelled to Kasurdi village in Taluka Daund, where Deep Griha runs City of Child (CoC). Here, 58 people received random blood sugar (RBS), blood pressure (BP) and oxygen saturation checks.
Rather than asking people to come to a single venue, the team went door to door, screening residents in their own homes and making a basic health check possible for people who might otherwise have missed it.
What the field team learned
Most of our CHWs work in urban communities, so the Kasurdi camp was a valuable learning experience. Working directly with a rural community gave them a clearer understanding of its health needs and reinforced a simple lesson: health services reach more people when they are taken to where people live.
Building a trusted, well-trained community health workforce
The health camps sit within a larger effort to strengthen community-led healthcare. The Diabetes Research Study has now reached its full revised sample of 330 participants, closing enrolment, and the team’s focus has shifted to follow-ups.
To keep standards high, the team took part in Good Clinical Practice training, an Informed Consent Form (ICF) refresher based on recent reviews, and First Aid and CPR training to prepare them for emergencies in the community.
That investment is building trust. Maternity clinics now accept home-based oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs) conducted by our CHWs for patients they refer, a significant milestone for the study. It shows that both community members and Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) hospitals increasingly trust CHWs to carry out this testing, an important step towards community-led healthcare.
Looking ahead
Building on what the research study has shown, Deep Griha is developing a proposal to bring trained community health workers to more communities, with a healthcare package centred on mothers’ health. Through this work, we continue to promote early detection, strengthen trust between communities and health services, and make essential care accessible in both urban and rural areas.
Kasurdi Health Camp
