Beyond the volcanoes: A community partnership for health in rural Nicaragua

Background: Health inequities related to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geography exist in rural Nicaragua due in part to lack of access to health services. The purpose of this ongoing project is to improve health equity in rural Nicaragua through social transformation using community-based participatory action research. Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of human development, school health, and primary health care theories provided the framework for this research.

Methods: Community-based participatory action research involves six phases: partnership, assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. In the partnership phase, the goal was to strengthen an established partnership between academic researchers and community members. Researchers engaged established partners in community-based capacity building, developed new partners in the community, and completed key informant interviews with new and established community partners. Face-to-face key informant interviews were guided by an assessment tool developed by the researchers.

Results: Five key informant interviews were obtained: two nurses, one physician, one teacher, and one politically appointed community health leader. Key informant interviews revealed information about school health education and services, community health resources, health promotion activities, disease prevalence, nutrition, water sources, sanitation, and health-related goals.

Conclusions: Results from the key informant interviews were used to develop a comprehensive community assessment tool in partnership with the community. Partnership building in community-based participatory action research provides a mechanism to engage community members in working toward a common goal—health for all.