Data from the Violence Against Children Surveys reveal alarming rates of child sexual abuse (CSA) in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the critical need for public health programming to prevent and respond to this issue. This paper describes the results of the Families Matter! Program (FMP) pilot evaluation study conducted in two urban suburbs of Harare, Zimbabwe to measure the effect of a new FMP session about preventing and responding to CSA. FMP is an evidence-based intervention for parents of adolescents designed to promote positive parenting practices and effective parent–child communication about sexual risk reduction and HIV prevention. We applied a pre/post-prospective study design to assess changes in CSA-related indicators such as parental monitoring, parent–child communication about CSA, and ability to respond to instances of CSA. Parents and their children (ages 9–12) enrolled in the study as dyads and participated in two assessments administered via ACASI prior to and three months following the intervention, with 248 dyads completing both assessments. Parents and children reported significantly higher levels of parental monitoring (p < 1.001) and communication about CSA after the intervention (p < 0.001). Significantly more parents also reported conversations with people in their community about CSA (p < 0.001) and knowledge of where to access services if their child was abused (p < 0.001). The pilot evaluation suggests that FMP equipped parents with skills and knowledge to prevent and respond to CSA, and increased communication regarding CSA within communities, further normalizing the need to address and talk about child abuse, CSA in particular. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

BACKGROUND: Zimbabwe has a high prevalence of children who have experienced abuse according to national data. OBJECTIVE: To understand how parents/caregivers and children describe child discipline, abuse, and neglect and what factors influence each, in order to inform the adaptation of a positive parenting/caregiving intervention in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. PARTICIPANTS: A total of eight focus groups were conducted, four with parents/caregivers (N = 40) and four with their children ages 10-14 (N = 40), separately, between June-July 2016. SETTING: Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. METHODS: We used an inductive and deductive analytic approach to analyze focus group transcripts, using MAXQDA 12. RESULTS: There were similar themes across focus groups of children and parents/caregivers. Findings suggest that parents/caregivers and children may be somewhat aware of the differences between discipline and abuse, but they are not completely clear about what the definitions of discipline and abuse are, and where the boundaries between discipline and abuse lie. The use of both non-physical and physical forms of discipline were described in the community, however physical discipline was a reoccurring theme in the focus groups of both parents/caregivers and their children. There were several factors that influenced discipline and/or abuse of children in the community, including the child's gender and theseverity of the child's misbehavior/actions. Parents/caregivers shared that orphan/non-biological children were particularly vulnerable to forms of abuse and neglect committed by parents/caregivers in the community, for example, withholding food and overworking a child. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the differences between discipline, abuse and neglect, as well as factors that influence occurrences of abuse/neglect and/or severity of abuse/neglect, need to be considered when assessing the vulnerability of children, in order to develop and refine parenting/caregiving interventions for the Zimbabwean context.

Disclosing child sexual abuse (CSA) is a necessary first step to access the legal, health, and psycho-social services that survivors and their families need. However, disclosure rates are low: of young women who experienced CSA in Zimbabwe, only 9% disclosed the first incident. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and describe perceived barriers to disclosing CSA in Zimbabwe. We conducted focus group discussions with children aged 10-14 years (n = 40) and their parents/caregivers aged 20-62 years (n = 40), participating in an intervention trial in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. We found that potential retaliation against survivors and their families is a major barrier to disclosing CSA. These retaliatory acts, which we refer to as "re-victimization," arise from stigma or the victim feeling blamed or doubted and manifest through physical violence, emotional violence, and deprivation of family life and education. Our findings suggest that addressing social and cultural norms related to sex and strengthening legal protection for CSA survivors and their families could encourage CSA disclosure and could help end this violence. Our findings also highlight a need to increase children's awareness of their rights and to create safe systems for disclosure of sexual abuse.

Introduction There have been numerous global calls to action to utilize human resources information systems (HRIS) to improve the availability and quality of data for strengthening the regulation and deployment of health workers. However, with no normative guidance in existence, the development of HRIS has been inconsistent and lacking in standardization, hindering the availability and use of data for health workforce planning and decision making (Riley et al., 2012). CDC and WHO partnered with the Ministry of Health in several countries to conduct HRIS functional requirements analyses and establish a Minimum Data Set (MDS) of elements essential for a global standard HRIS. As a next step, CDC advanced a study to examine the alignment of one of the HRIS it supports (in Zimbabwe) against this MDS. Method For this study, we created a new data collection and analysis tool to assess the extent to which Zimbabwe's CDC-supported HRIS was aligned with the WHO MDS. We performed systematic "gap analyses" in order to make prioritized recommendations for addressing the gaps, with the aim of improving the availability and quality of data on Zimbabwe's health workforce. Results The majority of the data elements outlined in the WHO MDS were present in the ZHRIS databases, though they were found to be missing various applicable elements. The lack of certain elements could impede functions such as health worker credential verification or equitable in-service training allocation. While the HRIS MDS treats all elements equally, our assessment revealed that not all the elements have equal significance when it comes to data utilization. Further, some of the HRIS MDS elements exceeded the current needs of regulatory bodies and the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) in Zimbabwe. The preliminary findings of this study helped inspire the development of a more recent HRH Registry MDS subset, which is a shorter list of priority data elements recommended as a global standard for HRIS. Conclusion The field-tested assessment methodology presented here, with suggested improvements to the tool, can be used to identify absent or unaligned elements in either an HRH Registry or a full HRIS. Addressing the prioritized gaps will increase the availability of critical data in the ZHRIS and can empower the MOHCC and councils to conduct more strategic analyses, improving health workforce planning and ultimately public health outcomes in the country.

BACKGROUND: Health information systems are central to strong health systems. They assist with patient and program management, quality improvement, disease surveillance, and strategic use of information. Many donors have worked to improve health information systems, particularly by supporting the introduction of electronic health information systems (EHIS), which are considered more responsive and more efficient than older, paper-based systems. As many donor-driven programs are increasing their focus on country ownership, sustainability of these investments is a key concern. This analysis explores the potential sustainability of EHIS investments in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, originally supported by the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). METHODS: Using a framework based on sustainability theories from the health systems literature, this analysis employs a qualitative case study methodology to highlight factors that may increase the likelihood that donor-supported initiatives will continue after the original support is modified or ends. RESULTS: Findings highlight commonalities around possible determinants of sustainability. The study found that there is great optimism about the potential for EHIS, but the perceived risks may result in hesitancy to transition completely and parallel use of paper-based systems. Full stakeholder engagement is likely to be crucial for sustainability, as well as integration with other activities within the health system and those funded by development partners. The literature suggests that a sustainable system has clearly-defined goals around which stakeholders can rally, but this has not been achieved in the systems studied. The study also found that technical resource constraints - affecting system usage, maintenance, upgrades and repairs - may limit EHIS sustainability even if these other pillars were addressed. CONCLUSIONS: The sustainability of EHIS faces many challenges, which could be addressed through systems' technical design, stakeholder coordination, and the building of organizational capacity to maintain and enhance such systems. All of this requires time and attention, but is likely to enhance long-term outcomes.