Tanner, M.

This article highlights disease control problems and problems hampering multidisciplinary reasearch. Traditional social science and epidemiological methods are often too time-consuming to address the immediate and urgent needs of disease control programmes therefore rapid assessment methods to provide information on health status, health impact, health services and health behaviour are essential. A distinction is made between the efficacy of disease control tools and community effectiveness, emphasising the potential for rapid assessment to improve community effectiveness.

A review of recent developments in health interview procedures within decentralised health planning emphasising the importance of beneficiaries' perceptions of their health problems in the success or failure of primary health care. The methodology used is that of 'indirect' health interviews channelled through existing administrative systems and self-administered by recipients. The article describes ongoing research designed to test this approach in seven African countries and discusses methodological problems and limitations.