title: [Community health workers are capable of determining reliably the target population for health programs].
abstract: The target population is a key concept for the planning and evaluation of health services. However, in developing countries, health professionals in the field are often uneasy with the determination of the population denominator. In Zaire, where reliable demographic data are hardly available, we make use of two different methods aimed to the determination of the size of the target population: (1) an exhaustive population based survey performed by trained interviewers, and (2) a rapid census of the target population performed by community health workers. This paper presents both the results of a demographic survey organized in 1984, and two consecutive census performed by community health workers in 1986 an 1988, in the same area (Northern-Kivu, Zaire). Our results suggest that community health workers under close supervision are able to perform rapidly and at low cost a reliable collection of the demographic data needed for the implementation and monitoring of health programmes at the local level.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Epidémiologie et de Médecine Sociale, Ecole de Santé Publique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgique.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Reynders
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tonglet
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Lembo
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mertens
authors.forename: D K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Isu
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dramaix
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hennart
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003150:Community Health Workers; D015023:Democratic Republic of the Congo; D003906:Developing Countries; D006285:Health Planning; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*
vernacular_title: Les agents de santé communautaires sont capables de déterminer avec précision la population-cible des programmes de santé.