Ten proposals have been selected to improve engagement of communities in research and in social innovations to enhance health care delivery in low- and middle-income countries.
Earlier this year, TDR, the Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) and WHO regional offices issued a call for proposals to identify good practices in engaging communities in research for implementation and in social innovation in low- and middle-income countries. The goal of this exercise is to map current practices, identify good practices, and better understand the enabling factors and barriers in engaging communities in research and in social innovation in health.
A total of 114 proposals were submitted in response to the call, and ten were selected for funding, as detailed below.
“Engaging communities is a critical factor for conducting effective research and designing social innovations that address health issues those communities are facing,” said Maria Teresa Bejarano, Senior Research Advisor at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). “We are very pleased to support these research projects and look forward to seeing the findings.”
This activity expands TDR’s work on good practices for community engagement, at the intersection of social innovation, implementation research, gender equity and ethics.
| Grant recipient | Institution | Country | Project title |
| Claudine Akondeng | Brain Research Africa Initiative | Cameroon | Best practices in engaging communities t in research in Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Phyllis Awor | Makerere University Kampala | Uganda | Community engagement in social innovation: A mixed methods analysis from the Social Innovation in Health Initiative |
| Sunita Bandewar | Forum for Medical Ethics Society | India | A collaborative research initiative cataloguing key community engagement practices embedded in implementation research public health projects involving disadvantaged (rural/indigenous) communities in India. |
| Zewdie Birhanu | Jimma University | Ethiopia | Identification, synthesis and translation of good practices and evidence for engaging communities in research and social innovation in health care delivery for infectious diseases of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa |
| Maryam Khazaee-Pool | Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences | Iran, Islamic Rep. | Social innovation in health and community-driven engagement as a key opportunity to address COVID-19 crisis challenges: reflections on the multicultural society of Iran |
| Cho Naing | International Medical University | Malaysia | A systematic review of good practices used to engage communities in health services research in neglected tropical diseases in low- and middle- income countries of South-East Asia and the Pacific |
| Pamela Pennington | Universidad del Valle de Guatemala | Guatemala | Best practices for community engagement to improve access to health services for Chagas disease control |
| Marita Reyes | Women's Health Care Foundation (WHCF) Inc. | Philippines | Sustaining gains in community engagement in the study of gender responsiveness in TB prevention and management in a high TB-burden area in the Philippines: promoting enablers and overcoming barriers |
| Bakhyt Sarymsakova | Forum of Ethics Committees | Kazakhstan | Mapping ethics committee (IEC/IRB) practices for engaging communities in health research in Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries: social innovative models for implementation and transferring the results of TB-related research |
| Arti Singh | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology | Ghana | Building evidence to facilitate effective community engaged research in Sub-Saharan Africa |
SIHI is supported by TDR, and additional funding is provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
For more information, please contact Dr Mihai Mihut.