Engage communities

Community engagement is an approach to strengthening health care delivery and establishing or reinforcing trust between patients and health care providers. Having trusted health workers on the front lines can dramatically improve health system responsiveness in the threat of disease outbreaks (WHO, 2018b). In communities with strong provider-community relationships, community members and health workers work as a team, improving demand generation, transportation, medication adherence, and health reporting. Communities can also play a critical social support role for providers, including housing, food, and a social network (WHO, 2018b).

Community-based stakeholders in health, peer educators, local health management committees, and health volunteers play critical roles in connecting communities to health care. Community engagement is an important strategy to optimise health worker performance, as it can promote health service utilisation (WHO, 2018b).

Example Link
Example of Sierra Leone: community engagement by strengthening community-based facility management committees was a key strategy to promote constructive feedback mechanisms, develop local solutions, improve service utilisation and support health workers at their jobs
Example of Ghana: community engagement intervention demonstrated health worker motivation to provide quality care, and led to reduced frequency of illness



Last modified: Tuesday, 24 May 2022, 9:03 AM