Ethiopia's Health Extension Program (HEP)

In 2004, Ethiopia launched Health Extension Program (HEP), to expand the national health program to include community based health interventions as a primary component of the HSDP.  HEP is "a package of basic and essential promotive, preventive, and curative health services targeting households in a community, based on the principle of Primary Health Care (PHC) to improve the families' health status with their full participation."  HEP became a core component of the broader health system, and it is one of the strategies adopted with a view to achieving universal coverage of primary health care to the rural population by 2009, in a context of limited resources.  The overall goal of HEP is to create a healthy society and reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality rates.  To ensure effective function of the HEP program, expansion of primary health care units, strengthening the health system and procurement of drugs and supplies have been emphasized in the design and implementation of HEP.  A study shows that access to safe water supply is encouraging and has improved significantly over time.  The increased access to safe water would creat an enabling environment for the desired change in personal hygiene behavior such as adopting consistent hand washing at critical times in a day since it requires adequate access to adequate quantity of water.  Safe water management practice at the source and home remains low and HEP should focus on creating knowledge and skill on safe water management practice through education and demonstration approaches.  Coverage of households with latrine facility has shown an improvement over time, and the finding that almost all model-family households have access to a latrine facility indicates the effectiveness of HEP and spcifically the model-family approach.  Solurce: EDHS 2011; HEP Survey 2010