Roles and challenges of health cadres in handling stunting: a qualitative study

Health cadres are volunteers or healthcare workers in the village who possess knowledge and skills in delivering basic healthcare services to the community. These people have direct access to the community at the grassroots level, playing an essential role in detecting, preventing, and addressing stunting. This study aimed to explore the experience of health cadres to increase understanding of their role in the community to address stunting.This study was carried out using a qualitative method and Focus Group Discussions (FGD), which included 40 participants for data collection. The instrument used was an FGD interview, consisting of questions about stunting, the experience as cadres, and the identification of stunting problems in the village. Subsequently, the data obtained were analyzed using the narrative analysis method. The identified themes included role played as cadres and the associated challenges. The roles that were identified included assisting primary health care programs, providing health education to mothers, weighing children, making referrals when there were problems, and helping to collect data needed by primary health care. The challenges observed were community perceptions underestimating the problem of stunting, attitudes of mothers, stigma in society about stunting, and other activities of health cadres.In conclusion, this study shows that the roles of cadres are expected to be an important factor in handling stunting. Consequently, providing adequate training and supervision for health cadres is essential to improve their role in the community.