Reviews the experiences of community participation in health programmes, with examples provided from the field of disease control.
This article considers the use of PRA in the general area of health both in determining what peoples' percieved health needs are and in designing interventions. There has been a recent increase of interest in applications of PRA in this area. This paper documents this increase in interest. It considers issues in this respect, the first being that the type of information supplied tends to be localised and cannot form the basis for widespread intervention.
The Collaborative Health Systems Research Group is a network of health policy makers and academics, supported by the European Commission. The Group takes the view that 'lack of knowledge is now not the main limiting factor in the improvement of health'. The group aims to improve the interface between methodologies from the bio-medical sciences and the social sciences. Health systems research employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. Classical epidemiological methods are used as well as systems analysis and operational research in order to activate research.