EPH 2019

Community-based Action Research: What can we learn from the HIV field experiences from the Global North and the Global South?

Communications

Background

Public health research aims to have an impact on populations, particularly when it comes to issues such as prevention or access to health. For this reason public health should conduct research with the concerned populations and not for them.

Participatory or community-based research is an approach based on equitable partnership between researchers and communities, for programs that are evidence-based and tailored to the needs of the people for whom they are intended. This approach is unevenly developed according to pathologies and health issues.

In the field of HIV, and since 1981, the response to the epidemics, including research, relied on the active force of communities affected by the disease. In other pathologies, like cancer, the weight of patient associations has a growing recognition, for example, the notion of the patient as the “expert of his own disease”. Thus, the community-based research approach is becoming more developed. This kind of approach is particularly important for the Global South, since most of health programs, often designed at an international level (e.g. WHO), should take into account local contexts, constraints and structural opportunities but also be adapted to specific social representations.

Aims

This pre-conference will propose, on the basis of different examples of public health research, in the field of HIV, co-constructed with the concerned populations in countries of the Global North and the Global South, a reflection on the specificities, the contributions and the challenges of community-based research. In order to be coherent with the community-based approach, each project will be presented by a public health researcher and a community representative.

Programme

13:30 - Introduction by Daniela Rojas Castro (Coaliation Plus, Inserm) and Joseph Larmarange (IRD)

13:40 - MAKASI: empowerment of subsaharan migrants in Great Paris area by Iris Zoumenou (Afrique Avenir) and Séverine Carillon (Ceped, IRD)

14:05 - Gundo So: serostatus disclosure management for women living with HIV in Mali by Adam Yattassaye (ARCAD-Sida) and Marie Préau (GRePS, Université Lyon 2)

14:30 - EuroHIV EDAT: implementing community-based HIV testing in Western Europe by Jordi Casabona (CEEISCAT) and Daniel Simoes (GAT)

14:55 - ATLAS: implementing and evaluating HIV self-testing in West Africa by Sophie Calmettes (Solthis) and Joseph Larmarange (IRD)

15:20 - Coffee Break

15:40 - Panel Discussion, chaired by Yves Martin-Prével (IRD)

Chairs

Daniela Rojas Castro (Coalition Plus, Inserm), Joseph Larmarange (IRD)

Reference

Calmettes Sophie and Larmarange Joseph (2019) “ATLAS : implementing and evaluating HIV self-testing in West Africa - an example of Community-based Action Research” (communication orale), presented at the Pre-confernence "Community-based Action Research : What can we learn from the HIV field experiences from the Global North and the Global South ?" at 12th European Public Health Conference, Marseille. https://ephconference.eu/2019-pre-conference-208.