📄 Abstract
Community health workers occupy a distinctive position within India’s rural health system, serving as government functionaries and community members. This paper examines the role of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in shaping women’s and maternal-child health outcomes among the indigenous Reang and Jamatia communities of Amarpur, Tripura, focusing on how ASHAs negotiate the dual identity of mother and worker in a patriarchal, resource-constrained tribal setting. Using a qualitative, explorative-cum-descriptive design combining interviews and focus group discussions across four villages—Paharpur, Kurma, Lalgiri and East Duluma—the study situates ASHA work within functionalist, medicalization, feminist and interactionist frameworks from medical sociology. Findings indicate that ASHAs function as indispensable cultural intermediaries translating biomedical messaging into locally intelligible idioms, while constrained by inadequate compensation, heavy unpaid workloads, limited training in tribe-specific health beliefs, and role ambiguity vis-à-vis Anganwadi workers and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives. The study documents improvements in antenatal care, institutional deliveries and immunisation coverage attributable to ASHA mediation, alongside gaps in postnatal, adolescent and mental health services. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening institutional support, remuneration and culturally responsive training for tribal ASHAs.
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📚 How to Cite:
Dr. Janata Sadhan Jamatia , BRIDGING COMMUNITIES AND HEALTHCARE: THE ROLE OF ASHAS IN WOMEN’S HEALTH AMONG INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN TRIPURA, INDIA , Volume 11 , Issue 7, July 2026, EPRA International Journal of Research & Development (IJRD) , Pages: 243 - 249 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra30956