About the Authors

Hastings T. Banda

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Research for Equity and Community Health Trust, Lilongwe, Malawi

Rachael Thomson

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Collaboration for Applied Health Research & Delivery, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Kevin Mortimer

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Collaboration for Applied Health Research & Delivery, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom

George A. F. Bello

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Research for Equity and Community Health Trust, Lilongwe, Malawi

Grace B. Mbera

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Research for Equity and Community Health Trust, Lilongwe, Malawi

Rasmus Malmborg

Roles Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Writing – original draft

Affiliation LHL International, Oslo, Norway

Brian Faragher

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Collaboration for Applied Health Research & Delivery, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom

S. Bertel Squire

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

bertie.squire@lstmed.ac.uk

Affiliation Collaboration for Applied Health Research & Delivery, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

SBS, BF and RT are employed by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) which is a registered charitable, UK-based research and teaching institution. Its mission is to save lives in resource poor countries through research, education and capacity strengthening. LSTM, in collaboration with REACH Trust, Malawi, applied to LHL for funds to carry out the work described in this manuscript. RM works for LHL International which is a Norwegian Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that receives funding from NORAD and the ATLAS Alliance (an umbrella organisation consisting of Norwegian NGO's working with people with disabilities and the fight against TB). LHL International is a member of the ATLAS Alliance. Funding from the ATLAS Alliance comes from individual Norwegian citizens who have given non-earmarked donations. LHL International, using funding as described above, is the funder of this project and therefore also of this article. While RM had no decision on whether or not the article was to be written and published, he had both technical input and financial management responsibility for funding of the project, in addition to being involved in the actual writing and work linked to being an author of this article. HTB, GAFB, GBM are employed by the Research for Equity and Community Health Trust (REACH Trust) which is a registered charitable, local NGO based in Malawi. Its mission is to address the inequity in access to health services through research. REACH Trust in collaboration with LSTM, applied to LHL for funds to carry out the work described in this manuscript.