PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT

This document is one in a series of 11 Field Guides produced by Stop TB Partnership in collaboration with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Interactive Research and Development Global (IRD), KIT Royal Tropical Institute, and multiple global experts and implementation partners. The Field Guides have been produced as part of the Global Fund’s Strategic Initiative on TB to help find the people with TB currently missed. These guides rely on practical experiences and expertise of implementers. Much guidance exists on what to do, but in the TB response, the ‘how to’ is often missed. These guides are meant to help national TB programmes and partners to design and implement interventions that will improve TB case detection and reach more of the people with TB who are currently missed.
This document should be used as a collection of considerations, tools, experiences and examples that highlight successes and challenges in implementing effective community case-finding interventions and may assist in their planning and implementation. Community case finding can be more complex and resource-intensive than other approaches. At the same time, community-level buy-in and well-managed collaborations may guarantee access to TB services for previously unreached communities and long term impact. This field guide is central to the work of Stop TB Partnership and TB REACH and serves as a basis for planning community-based interventions.
This field guide went through extensive peer review by the agencies and individuals acknowledged below. It presents a range of examples from peer-reviewed literature and implementation practice. Where not cited in published literature, examples are provided by TB REACH.