Sustainable Development Goal 3 underlines the right of everyone to have timely access to primary healthcare (PHC). Despite the fact that Belgium has put various reforms in place to make PHC more affordable and accessible, inequalities in access to care are even getting bigger – creating the need for innovative measures. A new health care model should thus be designed and tested to link people who have difficulties accessing PHC (PDAP) to the existing PHC system. Such a new model requires new fundamental knowledge, as former solutions have repeatedly failed. Since the country is also confronted with increasing health demands and limited budgets, there is impetus to tap into the potential of reverse innovations from low and middleincome countries (LMICs). A review of health innovations in LMICs and a theoretical analysis on the required characteristics of such a new model resulted in a community health worker (CHW) intervention – inspired by the Family Health System in Brazil and Re-engineering PHC in South Africa. We hypothesise that an outreaching PHC model with a CHW

intervention will address the access-to-care challenges in Flanders, Belgium. We will first study the interplay over time between the different barriers PDAP experience throughout the access-to-care continuum in Flanders (WP 1). Secondly, we will investigate the innovative PHC models in South Africa and Brazil to develop the CHW intervention (WP2). In WP3, we

will design a new outreaching PHC model which uses CHWs to improve access to care for PDAP in Flanders. In WPs 4 and 5, we will implement and evaluate the CHW intervention in a cluster randomised controlled trial. Finally, we will also assess the cost-effectiveness of the intervention (WP6). Throughout this work, academic experts from sociology, family medicine, and economics closely collaborate with committed societal stakeholders to join scientific insights and implementation knowhow, to optimise fit to practice and societal impact.