If you are responsible for—or engaged or interested in—advancing social/community participation in health (SPH) in your local area, this resource was developed for you. There are a variety of resources available on how to organise SPH, but there is limited guidance on how to evaluate its effectiveness. This publication aims to fill that gap. It is thus not about how to implement SPH, but rather how to evaluate SPH efforts. The Resource outlines how to conduct a baseline assessment, creating a critical reference point at the start of the SPH intervention to plan work and enable you to track changes as they are achieved. It guides you in carrying out a performance evaluation, to assess how well the SPH intervention is performing during implementation, for you to review and make any 'course corrections' needed. Finally, it explains how to conduct an outcome or impact evaluation, assessing the changes achieved, directly and indirectly, as a result of the SPH intervention. The use of the Resource is being piloted in 2022, so if you are interested, please get in touch. .
Useful Resources
This book focuses on district health systems and is intended for those working in primary health care. It presents practical uses for epidemiological concepts and methods and how to use population information to strengthen planning, management and evaluation. It is available open access online as a downloadable pdf, and a hardcopy can also be purchased.
The EQUATOR Network and the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization (PAHO) has developed an online course aimed at increasing the value of research by enabling people who are planning to conduct, report, edit, publish or appraise research for health, with current research reporting standards. This introductory course is targeted at a wide range of actors interested in research quality and the use of reports for decision-making. The course provides an overview of good reporting practice at all stages of the research pathway. The ideal time to take this course is as an introductory activity before beginning and finalizing your research proposal.
The Health Systems Training Institute (HSTi) is the training arm of the Health Systems Trust in South Africa. It offers a range of courses with different application dates, including in Primary Care; community healthcare stakeholder engagement; health information, indicators and analysis; Research methods for health; and other health system topics.
Asinakuthula Collective are a Collective of teachers, students, researchers and creatives invested in breaking the silences, marginalised narratives and vacuums of content surrounding the lives, roles, experiences and complexity of black African women in history. The collective has two public events every year, a memorial lecture and a masterclass, and carries out on-going archival work, knowledge production, teaching and learning that is made available online as a resource for those seeking to integrate women’s voices in their work.
Climate change is resulting in poorer health outcomes, increasing mortality and is a driver of health inequities. This fact sheet on climate change and health is part of the Climate Fast Facts series of the United Nations Climate Action team discusses how health is well placed to be a significant part of the solution; the positive health impacts from stronger climate change action can motivate stronger global ambition; how health systems which are resilient to climate change can help protect their populations from the negative impacts (in the short and longer terms); and how sustainable low carbon health systems can make a substantial contribution to reducing national and global emissions.
Dala Kitchen (More Than A Cookbook) is a celebration of the work of Cape Town Together. During 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of people came together to support one another in a range of creative and radically generous ways. Through a series of recipes, how-to's, articles and stories Dala Kitchen tells the story of Cape Town Together, the CANs that comprise it, and the people that are at the heart of the network. Together, these stories capture a moment in time and demonstrate that, in the words of Arundhati Roy "[a]nother world is not only possible, she is on her way.". The version on this website is a low resolution version- a higher resolution copy will replace this shortly.
The Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) is a software application that facilitates the assessment of within-country health inequalities. It was developed for use on desktop or laptop computers and mobile devices and has a Health Equity Monitor database and a version that allows users to upload and work with their own database. The application allows users to explore current or time trends in inequality in a setting of interest, such as a country, province or district; and compare inequality between settings. Inequalities are visualized in a variety of interactive graphs, maps and tables.
Corona Diaries is an open platform allowing people around the world to voice their experiences during the pandemic. It’s a place for stories big and small, joyful or sad, one off contributions or daily audio blogs. Every story is welcome. Initiated by former fellows of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, the platform is intended for journalists, artists and creators of all types to then use to make into any media they choose under the Creative Commons licence. It is an open database of recordings forever growing and always accessible.
This site tracks the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the country income classification. It tracks vaccine distribution relative to global needs and the coverage of total and priority populations, dividing countries into high-income; upper middle-income; lower middle-income and low income The site is refreshed daily.