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Abstract Background Community health workers continue to function vitally in assisting in the provision of health care, thereby contributing to the attainment of sustainable development goals and universal health coverage. Several community health worker programmes around the globe encounter significant obstacles that impact their engagement in providing community-based healthcare services. Objectives This study assessed the level of participation of Village Health Teams in community-based health care in Mitooma district, western Uganda. Methods This was a cross-sectional study that used a structured questionnaire to collect quantitative data from 341 Village Health Teams in Mitooma district. The main study variable was Village Health Teams’ participation based on the many programmatic functions Village Health Teams perform. Multivariable logistic regression in STATA was used to establish the predictors of Village Health Teams’ participation. Results The majority 231 (67.7%) VHTs participated heavily in health care initiatives. Majority 264 (77.4%) were female and had the occupation of crop agriculture. The Adjusted R Square was less that 70% implying the goodness of fit and significantly high association 95% CI: p = 0.0000; <0.05. Logistic regression revealed that female VHTs AOR = 3.8 (95% CI: 1.18–16.67), p = 0.03 were over three times more likely to participate with impact in community-based healthcare than their male counterparts. VHTs aged above 40 years AOR = 4.43 (95% CI: (1.18–16.67), p = 0.03 were over four times more likely to participate with impact in community-based healthcare than those aged 40 years and below. VHTs who were engaged in business AOR = 3.78 (95% CI: 1.21–11.74), p = 0.02 were over three times more likely to participate with impact in community-based healthcare than those engaged in agriculture. Conclusion We draw the conclusion from the study that gender, age, and employment play a vital role in the high involvement rate of village health teams in community-based healthcare. It is however necessary to support a long-term incentive system for VHTs by offering sufficient monetary and non-monetary rewards.
Ngabirano et al. (Mon,) studied this question.