Community Monitoring in Health Resources for the Practitioner |
C
Capitation
|
A method of payment for health care services in which an individual or institutional provider is paid a fixed amount for each person served in a set period of time, without regard to the actual number or nature of services provided to each person.
|
Catchment area
|
A geographic area defined and served by a health programme or institution, such as a hospital or community health centre, which is delineated on the basis of such factors as population distribution, natural geographic boundaries, and transportation accessibility. By definition, all residents of the area needing the services of the programme are usually eligible for them, although eligibility may also depend on additional criteria.
|
Citizen report cards
|
The Citizen Report Card (CRC) is a simple but powerful tool to provide public agencies with systematic feedback from users of public services. By collecting feedback on the quality and adequacy of public services from actual users, CRC provides a rigorous basis and a proactive agenda for communities, civil society organization or local governments to engage in a dialogue with service providers to improve the delivery of public services. (http://www.citizenreportcard.com/crc/pdf/manual.pdf)
|
Citizenship
|
Relationship between an individual and a state in which the individual owes allegiance to the state and in turn is entitled to its protection. In general, full political rights, including the right to vote and to hold public office, are predicated on citizenship. Citizenship entails obligations, usually including allegiance, payment of taxes, and military service. Citizenship may normally be gained by birth within a certain territory, descent from a parent who is a citizen, marriage to a citizen, or naturalization.
|
Community
|
A group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives, and engage in joint action in geographical locations or settings. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446907/)
A group of people, often living in a defined geographical area, who may share a common culture, values and norms, and are arranged in a social structure according to relationships which the community has developed over a period of time. Members of a community gain their personal and social identity by sharing common beliefs, values and norms which have been developed by the community in the past and may be modified in the future. They exhibit some awareness of their identity as a group, and share common needs and a commitment to meeting them. |
Community action for health
|
Collective efforts by communities which are directed towards increasing community control over the determinants of health and thereby improving health.
|
Community Based Organisation
|
A public or private non-profit organization that is representative of a community or a significant segment of a community, and is engaged in meeting human, educational, environmental, or public safety community needs.
All such organization, institutions or congregation of people, which have local area/ village-based presence, maturity and structural arrangements. They have group identity- membership. |
Community empowerment
|
Community empowerment refers to the process of enabling communities to increase control over their lives. "Communities" are groups of people that may or may not be spatially connected, but who share common interests, concerns or identities. These communities could be local, national or international, with specific or broad interests. 'Empowerment' refers to the process by which people gain control over the factors and decisions that shape their lives. It is the process by which they increase their assets and attributes and build capacities to gain access, partners, networks and/or a voice, in order to gain control. "Enabling" implies that people cannot "be empowered" by others; they can only empower themselves by acquiring more of power's different forms (Laverack, 2008). It assumes that people are their own assets, and the role of the external agent is to catalyse, facilitate or "accompany" the community in acquiring power.
Community empowerment, therefore, is more than the involvement, participation or engagement of communities. It implies community ownership and action that explicitly aims at social and political change. Community empowerment is a process of re-negotiating power in order to gain more control. (http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/7gchp/track1/en/index.html) Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Central to this process are actions which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern the use of these assets. (http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTEMPOWERMENT/0,,contentMDK:20245753~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:486411,00.html) Involves individuals acting collectively to gain greater influence and control over the determinants of health and the quality of life in their communities. Community empowerment is an important goal in community action for health. |
Community health
|
Community health, a field of public health, is a discipline which concerns itself with the study and improvement of the health characteristics of biological communities. Community health tends to focus on geographical areas rather than people with shared characteristics.
The combination of sciences, skills and beliefs directed towards the maintenance and improvement of the health of all the people through collective or social actions. The programmes, services and institutions involved emphasize the prevention of disease and the health needs of the population as a whole. Community health activities change with changing technology and social values, but the goals remain the same. |
Community health care
|
Includes health services and integrates social care. It promotes self care, independence and family support networks.
|
Community health centre
|
An ambulatory health care programme, usually serving a catchment area which has scarce or non-existent health services or a population with special health needs. These centres attempt to coordinate federal, state and local resources in a single organization capable of delivering both health and related social services to a defined population.
|
Community health needs assessment
|
The ongoing process of evaluating the health needs of a community. Usually facilitates prioritization of needs and a strategy to address them.
|
Community health worker
|
A trained health worker who works with other health and development workers as a team. The community health worker provides the first contact between the individual and the health system. The types of community health worker vary between countries and communities according to their needs and the resources available to meet them. In many societies, these workers come from and are chosen by the community in which they work. In some countries they work as volunteers; normally those who work part-time or full-time are rewarded, in cash or in kind, by the community and the formal health services.
|
Community intervention
|
Community intervention is defined as a community effort resulting from continuous communication, cooperation, and collaboration among all facets of a tribal government, community, and nation—that works to end harmful behaviors of individuals, families, or groups within that community through a balance of support, accountability, trust, respect, spirituality, and tradition. Interventions differ from prevention strategies because they aim to help individuals already engaged in risky or harmful behavior. Intervention programs are most often a reflection of a community’s traditional, spiritual, cultural, political beliefs, and healing practices. (http://meth.ncai.org/resources/documents/Strengthen%20The%20Circle_Community%20InterventionFinal.pdf)
Community-based interventions are those that target a group of individuals or a geographic community but are not aimed at a single individual. It excludes interventions delivered in clinical settings and interventions targeting areas as large as states or countries. These interventions employ a broad array of strategies that include education/behavior change, engineering/ technology, and legislation/enforcement. Community-level interventions are multi-component interventions that generally combine individual and environmental change strategies across multiple settings to prevent dysfunction and promote well-being among population groups in a defined local community. (http://people.cas.sc.edu/wanderah/communintervention.pdf) |
Community involvement in Health
|
The active involvement of people living together in some form of social organization and cohesion in the planning, operation and control of primary health care, using local, national and other resources. In community involvement, individuals and families assume responsibility for their and their communities' health and welfare, and develop the capacity to contribute to their own and their communities’ development.
A contribution of community members to health by fulfilling given responsibilities which have been broadened or narrowed from a situation to another or from a country to another. In some cases, the community assumes only social responsibilities by setting up structures to support the implementation of health programmes. In some others, communities have both social and technical responsibilities. Community involvement in health basically means that communities take responsibility for their own health through:
|
Community leaders
|
Community mobilisation
|
Community mobilisation is a process whereby a group of people have transcended their differences to meet on equal terms in order to facilitate a participatory decision-making process. It can be viewed as a process which begins a dialogue among members of the community to determine who, what, and how issues are decided, and also to provide an avenue for everyone to participate in decisions that affect their lives. (http://www.umanitoba.ca/institutes/disaster_research/brazil/report3.html)
Community mobilisation is a process in which relief workers and organisations work together with a community to address the community’s needs. Efforts of this type may be initiated by members of the local community or by outside groups, but in either case the goal is to support and strengthen the community’s natively-available resources, encouraging ownership and continuation also after the relief organisations have departed. (http://psychosocial.actalliance.org/default.aspx?di=64184&subject=Community%20mobilisation) Community mobilisation helps to motivate the people in a community and encourages participation and involvement of everyone, as well as building community capacity to identify and address community needs. Community mobilisation also promotes sustainability and long-term commitment to a community change movement. In addition, it motivates communities to advocate for policy changes to respond better to their health needs. (http://labspace.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=452853§ion=20.6) |
Community monitoring
|
Community-based Monitoring involves drawing in, activating, motivating, capacity building and allowing the community and its representatives e.g. community based organizations (CBOs), people’s movements, voluntary organizations and Panchayat representatives, to directly give feedback about the functioning of public health services. The community monitoring process involves a three-way partnership between healthcare providers and managers (health system); the community, community-based organizations, NGOs and Panchayati Raj Institutions.
|
Continuity of care
|
The provision of barrier-free access to the necessary range of health care services over any given period of time, with the level of care varying according to individual needs.
|
Continuum of care
|
The entire spectrum of specialized health, rehabilitative and residential services available to the frail and chronically ill. The services focus on the social, residential, rehabilitative and supportive needs of individuals, as well as needs that are essentially medical in nature.
|
Cost of illness
|
The personal cost of acute or chronic disease. The cost to the patient may be an economic, social or psychological cost or loss to himself, his family or community. The cost of illness may be reflected in absenteeism, productivity, response to treatment, peace of mind, quality of life, etc. It differs from health care costs in that this concept is restricted to the cost of providing services related to the delivery of health care, rather than the impact on the personal life of the patient.
|