Healthcare systems
Changing Policy and Practice
Dr Lucia D’Ambruoso from the University of Aberdeen is building on her research on the concept of community participation in healthcare in rural South Africa.
In South Africa, the health system faces many challenges: entrenched health inequalities, resource shortages, and multiple health crises.
Community participation is recognised as a key mechanism to achieve ‘health for all’. Knowledge of how to operationalise the concept is limited, however.
Based in rural South Africa, the Verbal Autopsy with Participatory Action Research (VAPAR) project has developed an intervention supporting Community Health Workers (CHWs) to build competencies in community mobilisation.
Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso and her team have trained over 100 CHWs in a rural region with a population of 500,000, improving functionality and capacity for local decision-making.
The team plan to use the funding to expand and adapt the intervention for implementation across the province (population of 4.4 million). They will embed practical solutions for community participation across practice settings, and share learning at provincial and national levels to facilitate policy and strategy commitments to participation in health.