In this opinion piece, we’ll explore why the global health sector is emphasising the need to involve communities in health research and ask, ‘whose knowledge counts?’ in the context of global health.
Community participation in health
Community participation in health is:
- not new;
- not neutral; and
- is a contested space.
From the beginning of the rapid expansion of community health programmes in the post-World War II period (in all corners of the globe) these initiatives have been understood as having ideological – as well as material – effects.
Since the substantial impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the health inequities it further exposed and deepened, the role non-medical professionals should play in problem-solving pervasive health challenges is once again in the spotlight.
A comprehensive and people-centred approach
Just two weeks ago at the UN assembly, delegates reaffirmed the need for a “comprehensive and people-centred approach” to achieving health for all, but what this means in practice is contested terrain. From movements championing a “comprehensive, participatory, inclusive public health approach that integrates rights, social dimensions and diverse sources of knowledge, evidence and innovation” to those that are pushing explicitly to professionalise and fairly pay community health workers, community participation in health is having a moment.
Why does the global health sector keep circling back to this idea – and ideal – of community participation, now with the added emphasis of engaging and involving communities in health research? To help answer this question, the following points are worth considering:
- Global goals (for example, the Sustainable Development Goals) on health are unmet, with great distances yet to travel to achieve them – so people are looking for new (old) approaches;
- Health research has not historically been organised to meaningfully incorporate and integrate the perspectives and knowledges of communities and individuals with ‘lived experience’, particularly in those places dependent on international aid to support health research processes;
- The Covid-19 pandemic revealed to many people, in many places, the necessity of context- and community-specific knowledge to address the complex health effects of this significant shock event. It also revealed the underlying systems and structures of inequality that produced unequal health outcomes in the first place. The combination of these factors has made community engagement less of an ‘add on’ and more of a necessary starting point;
- Health research funders increasingly recognise that for their work to have impact, it must be in more substantive dialogue with those populations at whom the research itself is targeted – not solely as a recruitment strategy, or a behavioural change communication strategy, but as a means through which to produce better quality research and useable research outputs.
Empowering community engagement and involvement in global health research
In light of both the long history of debates and tensions over ‘whose knowledge counts’ in the space of public/international/global health – and of a 30+ year commitment to using research processes as opportunities for new kinds of accountabilities and shifts in unequal power in the health space, IDS is offering a new global health research specialist course: Empowering community engagement and involvement in global health research.
Our new, in-person training course builds on a programme of learning that we first developed for the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), beginning in 2018 when they began piloting new mechanisms for incentivising health researchers to embed and integrate community engagement within their research processes.
Our intent now is to create a revitalised space for practitioners of Community Engagement and Involvement (CEI) and for the CEI-curious to come together at this crucial juncture and build our skills and capabilities, so that we too might continue to reckon with the complexity of challenging – and shifting – knowledge power in global health.
If the question of ‘whose knowledge counts’ drives you forward in your own work, and if you want to get more strategic about how you position a CEI approach within global or national level health research processes, please join us for our new course this January 2024: Empowering community engagement and involvement in global health research.
The road to health equity is clearly a long one, and the dangers of tokenistic forms of community participation incredibly high, but we hope for this course to provide a contribution to the ongoing work of a much broader community of actors who have long campaigned for people-centred, participatory and inclusive forms of health research and practice.
Find out more about our new, specialist short course: Empowering community engagement and involvement in global health research.
Applications for this course close on 11 December 2023 – don’t miss out! Secure your place now.
Key contacts
