Methodological Evaluation of Community Health Centre Systems in South Africa: A Randomized Field Trial for Clinical Outcomes Measurement

Community health centres in South Africa are underutilized due to inadequate healthcare delivery systems. A randomized field trial was conducted with a sample size of 200 participants across five randomly selected communities. The primary outcome measure was the number of patients seen per month, compared to pre-intervention data. The intervention increased patient visits by an average of 15% (95% CI: 7-23%) in the trial areas. Community health centres significantly improved clinical outcomes when adequately supported and staffed. Allocate additional resources to community health centres, particularly for training and supplies. Treatment effect was estimated with logit(pᵢ)=β₀+β^ Xᵢ, and uncertainty reported using confidence-interval based inference.