Augmenting frameworks for appraising the practices of community-based health interventions
Date
2009-04-20Author
Pérez, Dennis
Lefèvre, Pierre
Romero, Maria Isabel
Sánchez, Lizet
De Vos, Pol
Van der Stuyft, Patrick
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Pérez, D., Lefèvre, P., Romero, M. I., Sánchez, L., De Vos, P. & Van der Stuyft, P. (2009) Augmenting frameworks for appraising the practices of community-based health interventions. Health Policy and Planning, 24(5), pp. 335–341.
Abstract
This paper aims at augmenting the frameworks proposed by Rifkin in 1996 to distinguish between target-oriented and empowerment approaches to participation in community-based health interventions. In her paper, Rifkin defined three criteria: who makes decisions on resource allocation, expected outcome and outcome assessment. We propose five additional criteria: the definition of community, the characteristics of the capacity-building process, the leadership characteristics, the documentation process, and ethical issues regarding participation. Derived from our analysis of a community-based project, the proposed criteria are discussed in the light of the principles of Popular Education and other literature on community participation. The augmented frameworks are intended to assist health professionals and planners interested in the empowerment approach of community participation to consciously sharpen their practice.