Prepare To Mobilize

Gathering information about the community

The following is a list of topics and questions you may want to use to gather information about the community.

• Sociocultural context
  How is the community organized? (Social class, ethnic groups, languages spoken [dominant language, others], religions, age) What are the traditional groups and organizations? What are their roles and functions? Who belongs to them? How do they relate to each other? Who is wealthy? Who is poor? How do you know? How is land allocated? How do people support themselves and their families?
• Gender relations/roles
  What traditionally are men’s/boy’s and women’s/girl’s roles? What proportion of men are directly affected by the issue? Women? Who has access to what (e.g., information, services, resources)? What are the power relations between sexes?
• Politics, leaders, and organizations
  What is the traditional organizational structure of the community? Who leads? Which groups participate in decision-making? Who are the official community leaders? Who are the informal/traditional leaders? How are community decisions made? Who participates? How is official leadership transferred? What links does the community have to external political systems outside of the community (e.g., representation in a municipal, district, or regional body)? Is the community considered to be a “priority” area by government officials? Is there a strong constituency or is the community relatively abandoned with little political capital?Which groups and leaders are strongest and/or have the greatest support of the broader community? Of external organizations?
• Economy
  What is the current economic situation in the country, region, and community (e.g., high inflation, high unemployment, heavy loan debt)? What is the average income of the families in the community? How do most families support themselves? What percent of families are considered poor? What is the level of external assistance?
• History
  When was the community established? By whom? Why? What is the history of collective action by the community? Has the community ever worked collectively on health issues before? Which issues? What were the results?
• Geography
  Where is the community located (e.g., geographically limited or dispersed)? Which characteristics related to the community’s location will likely affect implementation of a community mobilization effort (weather/seasons, mountainous, dispersed population, highly populated urban neighborhoods, easy to reach or hard to get to, and other factors)?
• Epidemiology and health systems
  What is the frequency of the health problem in identified groups (e.g., community-wide, specific groups within a community)? Which factors related to the health issue are important to consider (e.g., how disease is spread; risk factors; protective factors)? How is the public health system organized? How does health care financing work in this setting? What role does traditional medicine play? What is the coverage and utilization of public/private/traditional health services? What are the most significant challenges faced by the health system/services? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the health services/system? How good is the quality of care? From whose perspective (community members, providers, external observers)?

Gathering Information About The Health Issue
Sources of Information
Initiating contact with the community
What does my information mean? Looking for underlying themes.