TY - JOUR
T1 - Taking a pulse on community participation in maternal health through community clinics in Bangladesh
AU - Banik, Goutom
AU - Mazumder, Tapas
AU - Siddique, Abu Bakkar
AU - Uddin, A. F. M. Azim
AU - Arifeen, Shams El
AU - Perkins, Janet
AU - Rahman, Ahmed Ehsanur
N1 - This article belongs to the Special Issue 2nd Edition of Community Empowerment: The Potential for Community Health Nursing Development.
PY - 2023/1/27
Y1 - 2023/1/27
N2 - Bangladesh started institutionalising community participation by setting-up community clinics (CCs) during the mid-90 s. This paper presents the genealogy of CCs, the community participation mechanism embedded within CCs, and the case of 54 CCs in Brahmanbaria, through the lens of maternal health. We undertook a desk review to understand the journey of CCs. In 2018, we assessed the accessibility, readiness and functionality of CCs, and a household survey to know recently delivered women's perceptions of CC's community groups (CGs) and community support groups (CSGs). We performed multiple logistic regression to determine the association between the functionality of these groups and women's perception regarding these groups' activities on maternal health. The integration of community participation involving CCs started to roll out through the operationalisation of the Health and Population Sector Programme 1998-2003. In 2019, 13,907 CCs were operational. However, per our CC assessment, their accessibility and readiness were moderate but there were gaps in the functionality of the CCs. The perception of women regarding these groups' functionality was significantly better when the group members met regularly. The gaps in CCs are primarily induced by the shortcomings of its community participation model. Proper understanding is needed to address this problem which has many facets and layers, including political priorities, expectations, and provisions at a local level.
AB - Bangladesh started institutionalising community participation by setting-up community clinics (CCs) during the mid-90 s. This paper presents the genealogy of CCs, the community participation mechanism embedded within CCs, and the case of 54 CCs in Brahmanbaria, through the lens of maternal health. We undertook a desk review to understand the journey of CCs. In 2018, we assessed the accessibility, readiness and functionality of CCs, and a household survey to know recently delivered women's perceptions of CC's community groups (CGs) and community support groups (CSGs). We performed multiple logistic regression to determine the association between the functionality of these groups and women's perception regarding these groups' activities on maternal health. The integration of community participation involving CCs started to roll out through the operationalisation of the Health and Population Sector Programme 1998-2003. In 2019, 13,907 CCs were operational. However, per our CC assessment, their accessibility and readiness were moderate but there were gaps in the functionality of the CCs. The perception of women regarding these groups' functionality was significantly better when the group members met regularly. The gaps in CCs are primarily induced by the shortcomings of its community participation model. Proper understanding is needed to address this problem which has many facets and layers, including political priorities, expectations, and provisions at a local level.
KW - community participation
KW - community clinics
KW - functionality
KW - community group
KW - community support group
KW - maternal health
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph20032271
DO - 10.3390/ijerph20032271
M3 - Article
C2 - 36767638
SN - 1660-4601
VL - 20
SP - 1
EP - 17
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 3
ER -