Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM)

Programmatic experience shows that an integrated strategy can be effective in achieving high treatment coverage and delivering high-quality care to sick children in the community.1

Photo of a man administering healthcare to a child on a woman's lap.
Photo credit: Fernando Fidelis/MCSP, Muecate District, Nampula Province, Mozambique
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Want to learn how to institutionalize iCCM within your national health system? Check out our iCCM Institutionalization Toolkit including key resources, guidance from country experiences, research and tools.

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What is iCCM?

Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) is a strategy to train, support, and supply community health workers (CHW) to provide diagnostic, treatment, and referral services for three common, treatable, and curable childhood illnesses: malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea. Young children are especially vulnerable to these illnesses, and iCCM offers caregivers in these hard-to-reach communities a way to help children under five get the treatment they need before it is too late.2 iCCM has become one of the key global health strategies recognized by stakeholders across the health system. When well-designed and implemented, an iCCM program expands access to life saving interventions for vulnerable populations living in settings with poor access to health care.


Why iCCM?

Over the last decade or so, key global stakeholders working with country level partners and Ministries of Health in high burden countries have been successful in bringing in policy change, with the majority of the countries approving iCCM as a key strategy to deliver life-saving interventions to remote and inaccessible communities. However, implementation at scale shows mixed results, with very few countries able to cover a significant proportion of the iCCM target areas. Also, most countries still rely on donor support to fund their iCCM programs, which has resulted in limited implementation coverage. Many countries that have scaled up iCCM also struggle to maintain an acceptable level of service integration and quality. There is a huge unfinished agenda that includes, most importantly, weak global guidance and national governance, and weak integration and implementation quality. Addressing these issues will require continued global level coordination and support to help countries achieve their goal of quality implementation of iCCM at scale. To be effective, iCCM must be ministry-led, adequately resourced and managed, with long-term commitments of support from partners. National ownership of the iCCM strategy requires that countries plan and adequately budget for iCCM implementation, including domestic funding sources for health.

The set of resources presented below was collated by the Child Health Task Force subgroup for Institutionalizing iCCM and the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Impact Malaria. They are meant to guide national and subnational policymakers in their journey towards institutionalization as well as provide information for implementers engaged in iCCM programs at the country and community levels.

Icon of spotlights Featured Resource

Advocacy Brief: Achieving Impact at Scale - New Funding Opportunities for Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Illnesses (iCCM) through the Global Fund

Costing and Financing

This brief, developed by the iCCM Task Team, includes key messages advocating for the inclusion of iCCM, non-malaria commodities, and other systems strengthening for child health in country Global Fund proposals. The resource is available in English, Portuguese, and French.

Computer icon Resources

These resources are grouped using the components in the iCCM benchmark framework developed by USAID.³ For more iCCM resources, see this list in the Child Health Task Force Resource Library.

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Human Resources Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

In partnership with CIDA, Save the Children implemented a multi-country initiative to deliver integrated community case management (iCCM) services to remote communities in Mozambique, Malawi, and South Sudan. In Mozambique, the project reached an estimated total population of 772,753 of which 131,161 are children under five years old. The iCCM workers are volunteer community health workers, referred to as Agentes Polivalentes Elementares.

Coordination and Policy Setting Costing and Financing Human Resources Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral Communication and Social Mobilization Supervision and Performance Quality Assurance

This report features the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's special supplement on integrated community case management (iCCM).

Human Resources Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This presentation details the outcome of an integrated community case management (iCCM) study about Africa.

 

Costing and Financing Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This MSH report analyzes integrated community case management in Cameroon.

Coordination and Policy Setting

This report examines the effectiveness of policy entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso. It reveals that they are most effective when they have certain behavioural traits, institutional constraints, political capital, and network position. 

Costing and Financing Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This USAID-produced report examines the experience of Zambia with the Global Fund New Funding Model (NFM). It reviews efforts to incorporate integrated Community Case Management into Zambia’s malaria and health systems strengthening concept notes to leverage resources to scale up iCCM.

Costing and Financing Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This USAID-produced report examines the experience of Nigeria with the Global Fund New Funding Model (NFM). It reviews efforts to incorporate integrated Community Case Management into Nigeria’s malaria and health systems strengthening concept notes to leverage resources to scale up iCCM.

Costing and Financing Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This USAID-produced report examines the experience of Kenya with the Global Fund New Funding Model (NFM). It reviews efforts to incorporate integrated Community Case Management into Kenya’s malaria and health systems strengthening concept notes to leverage resources to scale up iCCM.

Costing and Financing Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This USAID-produced report examines the experience of Uganda with the Global Fund New Funding Model (NFM). It reviews efforts to incorporate integrated Community Case Management into Uganda’s malaria and health systems strengthening concept notes to leverage resources to scale up iCCM.

Costing and Financing Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral M&E and Health Information Systems

This USAID-produced report examines the experience of Ghana with the Global Fund New Funding Model (NFM). It reviews efforts to incorporate integrated Community Case Management into Ghana’s malaria and health systems strengthening concept notes to leverage resources to scale up iCCM.