A comparative case-control s tudy t o asses s the determinantsrnof commun i t y hea 7th agent fun c t i ona Ii ty ~~as done in two Ars irnAwrajas, in mid-southern Ethiopia. This was a census study whichrn'lias conducted by interviellling 347 CHAs from a structuredrnquestionnaire. The first objective was to describe the situationrnof the CHAs trained for the two Alvrajas up to the end of 1987. Thernother objecti'e was to elucidate the determinants of CHArnfunctionality by comparing the attributes of the functional CHAsrn(cases) with that of the non-functional ones(controls). Anrnattempt was made to elucidate the determinants of these attributes.rnThe findings revealed that only 25.8% of the CHAs interviewed werernperforming 50% or more of the activities mentioned in their jobrndescription . 45.6% of the CHAs were found to be performing nornacti v ities at the time of the interview, i.e. a point prevalence ofrnattrition rate of 45%. Comparing cases and controls showed thatrnthere was strong associations between CHA function and communityrnsupport for the CHAs(RR = 72.4 with 95% CI 35 - 153). The otherrnfactor which was seen to be associated with function was supervisionrnby health institutions (Odds of being functional when supervisedrnbeing 28 with 95% CI of 15 - 53). Other factors ~'hich were found tornbe positively related to CHA functionality were: presence ofrnhea lth post, provision of drugs and stationary to the CHA, andrnestab Ii shment of an act i ve hea I th commi ttee wi th the CHA be ingrnan execut i ve member â€¢rnThese f indings emphasize the importance of thernprov i s i on of prope r commun i t y and hea I th system support for thernsuccess o f the community health services program.