Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học quốc tế đề tài : Initial community perspectives on the Health Service | Human Resources for Health BioMed Central Research Open Access Initial community perspectives on the Health Service Extension Programme in Welkait Ethiopia Haile Negusse1 Eilish McAuliffe1 2 and Malcolm MacLachlan 1 3 Address 1Centre for Global Health Trinity College Dublin Dublin 2 Republic of Ireland 2School of Medicine Trinity College Dublin Dublin 2 Republic of Ireland and 3School of Psychology Trinity College Dublin Dublin 2 Republic of Ireland Email Haile Negusse - negusseh@ Eilish McAuliffe - Malcolm MacLachlan - Corresponding author Published 24 August 2007 Received 20 March 2007 Human Resources for Health 2007 5 21 doi 1478-4491-5-21 Accepted 24 August 2007 This article is available from http content 5 1 21 2007 Negusse et al licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background The Health Service Extension Programme HSEP is an innovative approach to addressing the shortfall in health human resources in Ethiopia. It has developed a new cadre of Health Extension Workers HEWs who are charged with providing the health and hygiene promotion and some treatment services which together constitute the bedrock of Ethiopia s community health system. Methods This study seeks to explore the experience of the HSEP from the perspective of the community who received the service. A random sample of 60 female heads-of-household in a remote area of Tigray participated in a structured interview survey. Results Although Health Extension Workers HEWs had visited them less frequently than planned participants generally found the programme to be helpful. Despite this their basic health knowledge was still quite poor regarding the