Narrowing the gap between academic professional wisdom and community lay knowledge: perceptions from partnerships.

Full Abstract

Community involvement in health through community partnerships (CPs) has been widely advocated. Putting CPs into practice is complex and represents a challenge for all the stakeholders involved in the change process. Employing data from five CPs aiming to bring together communities, academics and health service providers in South Africa, this paper aims to examine and compare the views of the health care professionals with those of the community members with respect to each other's skills and abilities. Five domains of expertise in partnership working are examined:
educational competencies; partnership fostering skills; community involvement expertise; change agents proficiencies; and strategic and management capacities. The findings suggest that the community recognizes the expertise and abilities brought by the professional staff to the CPs. Community members have a positive view of the capabilities of the professionals, in particular their abilities as resource persons in the areas of budget management, policy formulation and the introduction and management of change. The professionals, on the other hand, are cautious regarding the level of skill and capability in communities. The limited appreciation of community skills by the professionals covered all the five domains of expertise examined. The findings suggest that if joint working is to survive, the professionals will need to increase their valuation of the indigenous proficiencies inherent in their community partners. We conclude that programme models need to consciously incorporate in their design and implementation, capacity building, skills transfer and empowerment strategies.

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Author information

Author/s: El Ansari, W (W); Phillips, C J (CJ); Zwi, A B (AB);

Affiliation: Public and Community Health Department, School of Health Care, Oxford Brookes University, UK. walid.ansari(-atsign-)brookes.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Multicenter Study

Journal: Public health (Public Health), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-May; vol 116 (issue 3) : pp 151-9

Dates: Created 2002/06/25; Completed 2002/07/12; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12082597, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Community Networks - organization & administration
Consumer Participation
Cooperative Behavior
Cross-Sectional Studies
Faculty
Female

Female
Health Services Research
Humans
Male
Public Health
South Africa
Universities - organization & administration

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