The founding group of CHC held faculty and allied positions in the Department of Community Health in a leading medical college in South India before setting up CHC. With this academic background, we continued teaching, and practice of community health and also added a dimension of research on various aspects of community health based on the social paradigm of health which we are evolving through our work.
The type of research that we did over the years was mostly community based and community oriented with a focus on health systems and health policy. The methods were primarily qualitative and mixed. All the studies mentioned above were done based in the non-state civil society sector which offered a lot of freedom. Links were maintained as appropriate with government, academic institutions, NGOs, associations and networks and a number of individuals as relevant. What we consciously did to publishing journals and bulletins that were reaching civil society and policy makers and not necessarily in main stream journals that was accessed mostly by the academic or research community. We published reports for circulation locally where decisions and action were required. We also introduced local language publications when we were trying to reach the lay person in the community. Some key examples are listed below. For details refer to research section.
RESEARCH THEMES AND METHODOLOGY:
Health Systems Research:
Evaluation:
- Evaluation of Catholic Hospital Association of India
- Evaluation of Jan Swasthya Rakshak Madhya Pradesh
- Evaluation of State Health Systems Resource Centre and Mitanin Programme
Human resource Development Policy
- Social Relevance and community orientation of undergraduate medical education
- Building medical curriculum through graduate doctor feed back
Health Policy Analysis
- Delphi Projection on Health Issues and Challenges and the role of NGO’s and Mission Sector
- Health policy analysis of Policy Process and Implementation factors using national tuberculosis programme as a case study
Implementation research
- Documentation of Health Inter-Network (HIN) project in Kanakapura taluk
- Global Public private Initiatives in health case study of lymphatic filiariasis
- Revitalising Health for All –Learning from comprehensive primary health care (Asian Hub)
Community Health Orientation of Research Networks and Policy Groups
- Participation in the WHO, Task Force on Health Systems Research (March 2005)
- Participation in the steering committee of the Global Forum for Health Research (GFHR) to strengthen the research on social determinants of health
- Enhance participation of researchers from global south; and increase the participation of emerging and young voices
- STRATEC Committee to review all studies and technical reports
- Organising a dialogue on Research for people’s health; A Researcher’s Encounter at the Second People’s Health Assembly of the People’s Health Movement, University of Cuenca Ecuador
- Participation in the Measurement and Evidence Knowledge Network (MEKN) of the WHO commission on Social Determinants of Health
- Participation in the call by the civil society for Research for Health, for the Bamako Mali Inter-ministerial conference on research for Health
Knowledge Translation
- Hamari sehat hamari ladai: A comic for Bhopal Victims sharing health related information arising out of MFC study. (in collaboration with Eklavya
- Seeking the signs of times: A discussion document based on the findings of the CHAI golden jubilee evaluation