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Community Participation in Health Program and Service Delivery: Case Studies on Rural and Urban Health Complex

Corresponding Author : Dr Mohammad Shafiqul Islam (Shafiq.pad@gmail.com)

Authors :

Keywords : community, participation, politics, management, health programs

Abstract :

Bangladesh has made a remarkable progress in quantitative health care indicators in last decade; however, quality of health service delivery is low and unsatisfactory for poor accountability and limited community participation. This study aims at examining the reasons of inadequate community participation and its influence on the quality of health care delivery of rural and urban health service organizations. For this, in-depth interview from 68 participants of health professionals, national respondents, elected officials, local informants, and four focus group participants comprising 37 service users have been selected and used for data collection in order to get their views to understand community participation and the quality of health care delivery. The data shows that power politics and bureaucratic resistance affect health professionals’ adequate participation to health service organization, which substantially downs the quality of health care delivery. Besides, lack of decentralization and commitment of elected officials contribute to poor participation and inadequate health care delivery. The effective political decentralization is one of the useful mechanisms to promote community participation and the quality of health care delivery at the upazila level.

Published on December 31st, 2019 in Vol 30, No 2, Social Sciences