Prepare To Mobilize

Gathering information about the health issue

The following questions will help you in gathering information about the health issue.

• Who is most affected by the health issue?
• How many people are directly affected? Indirectly? This number needs to be determined in the context of how you are defining the extent of coverage of your effort: one community? several communities? a district? a region of the country?
• Where do the most-affected people live? Do people who are most affected by the issue live close together? Are they near to a source of the problem (e.g., contaminated water source)? Are health and other services available near where they live? Are they difficult to locate because they are not within a specific geographic area but form a community based on other characteristics?
• What are their socio-demographic characteristics? Do people who are most affected by the issue share similar characteristics (age, sex, income levels, ethnic groups, language, and other factors)?
• Why are these people most affected? Your team may want to explore aspects of the health condition itself that make some people more likely to be affected by it (risk factors and/or specific practices). Do they have limited access to information, services, and resources due to discrimination, geographic/social/cultural isolation, and many other factors? To what extent do they decide what they do, or do others decide for them? Who influences their decisions and practices at the household level?
• What are current beliefs and practices related to the issue? Who decides and/or influences what will be done and how at the community level? How do you know this information? What don’t you know?
• Are the people in the community organized around this or any other issue? How? Is there any history of mobilization in the past?
• What is the level of capacity/skills (any participation in/experience with collective assessment, planning, action, monitoring/evaluation, decision-making, negotiation)?
• How do those most affected by the issue interact with the rest of the community? With decision-makers? Do they have access to resources? How have they managed resources in the past?

When in doubt, it is always preferable to admit to not knowing. In fact, it is better to be humble and open to exploring multiple perspectives. Communities are not homogeneous, and knowledge and practices vary among members. This type of information can be obtained through surveys, anthropological studies, participatory research, and other means. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses and you should be aware of these as you gather information. If you can find little existing information, you will need to develop a more comprehensive process to explore this area.

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